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The original was posted on /r/opensource by /u/zeemouu on 2024-12-30 09:00:55+00:00.

link to chrome store page: Chrome web store

link to project code repo: Github

hey guys. I recently created an opensource coupon finder extension, BeesWax!

reasoning behind project:

about a week ago, honey had some controversy as mentioned in this video.

TLDW: Affiliate cookies, which are used to reward various services for advertising sales on eCommerce sites, work on a last-click basis; the last service that claims the cookie will be rewarded Honey, as well as some other coupon finder extensions, injects your purchase with their own affiliate cookie from their popups when you check out, thereby giving them the entire reward for capturing your sale. This is problematic because:

  1. it takes away credit from real services that should be rewarded for your purchase, eg influencers
  2. it takes credit for your sale even if no coupons are found and it doesn’t help at all
  3. honey also sometimes hides better deals from you in order to entice eCommerce sites to work with them

I thought about it and realized many of these issues could be fixed if it was an opensource project instead.

I found this project:

However i couldn’t get it to work (maybe a me thing?)

Anyways, i always loved the community uploaded type model that SponsorBlock uses, and thought it could work for this scenario. so, i adopted it so that users can add any coupons to any website if and when they come by one

things i might consider adding.

i pushed this out a bit early to see if i can capture some of the traction from the honey controversy, but i still have a couple of ideas i have to improve this project, perhaps if this project gains some interest.

  1. better handling of bad coupons there are a few ways currently to misuse this extension , eg by spamming fake coupons. i have added a rating system so that users can rate whether the coupons work, where coupons rated <0 are removed. however, this also can be misused by spamming ratings. (ratings get blocked after you rate them, but you can still reload the extension and rate again)
  2. adding coupons through web scraping

could integrate a web scraper to add in coupons together with community submitted ones

  1. add in ability to show deals beyond coupons

currently it only supports coupon codes, but i could see it being expanded to other areas eg sales dates etc

  1. time based coupon expiry

this is one seems pretty easy lol ill probably finish this when i get the time

also, this is my first project i am releasing and promoting publicly, i have only really made stuff for my personal/friends use until now. so, please give me any advice you may have or anything that i should improve!