azc242/linkedout

Block your toxic LinkedIn feed http://alanzchen.com/LinkedOut/

LinkedOut - Block your toxic LinkedIn feed.

What is LinkedOut?

A chrome extension that will remove your LinkedIn feed's posts (and replace it with cat or dog pictures instead).

However, not all LinkedIn posts were created equal. Some provide value and useful tips for recruiting or one's professional career. As a result, users can specify accounts whose posts they would like to see instead of blocking all posts.

Why was this built?

One of LinkedIn's most useful features are its abundance of job postings and networking opportunities with recruiters and connections.

Many people go on LinkedIn to find job postings but instead see non-fulfilling content or others posting about their massive success. While it is warming to see so many people landing their dream jobs, it can cause users to become dissatisfied with their own careers. Consequently, this extension was built to better the mental health and well-being of LinkedIn users.

Here's what your LinkedIn feed will look like

For cat people:

For dog people:

Usage

Clicking on the extension icon in the top right of you Chrome browser will allow you to set whether you prefer cats or dogs on your feed as well as unblock certain accounts. Alternatively, you can right click the feature and clikc "Options" and an entire HTML page will pop up and you can edit your settings from there.

Note: The unblocking feature should be used sparingly to not defeat the purpose of this extension. It also only displays direct shares, not reposts.

Contributing

If you would like to contribute or test an up to date version of this extension (that hasn't made it to the Chrome Store yet), follow these steps.

1. Download this repository as a ZIP file.
2. Unzip the file into any directory.
3. Click on the jigsaw puzzle icon in your Chrome browser located in the top right corner, and select "Manage Extensions".
4. Turn on Developer Mode in the top right of the extensions page
5. Click "Load Unpacked" in the top left of the page, and select your unzipped folder
6. Make sure the extension is turned on, and head to LinkedIn's homepage! Note: If you already had LinkedIn's homepage on, you will need to refresh your page. Simply navigating to the homepage, or switching to another LinkedIn page and switching back to the homepage will not work. Extensions are only loaded into a webpage after a refresh (cmd+r on MacOS or ctrl+R on Windows). You may also see an error in the Extensions Page. Note 2: I removed the background.js from git tracking because I began to use FireBase for tracking total number of times the extension was used, which meant revealing some sensitive API values. You can view the background.js right before I added FireBase code in the diff for this commit.

Bug Reports

If problems arise, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/kNJD2cH72dWwF1TdA

linkedout's Issues

Opening LinkedIn in background doesn't fire extension

If the user opens the site in the background, or opens it and navigates away before the script finishes, posts may not be blocked appropriately. This probably has something to do with the fact that the script runs via a listener in background.js, and so navigating away may disrupt or send a new message.

Like, Comment, Share buttons on whitelisted posts not working

js seems to be disabled. The "...see more" is also disabled, but I used a script to auto-expand posts so it's not evident.

Allow job updates

Great job on this extension! I had this idea and dinner, then joked that I would call it "LinkedOut". Googled it and of course you thought similarly! It would be cool to have an option to allow posts that are automated career updates from connections. These posts contain the class feed-shared-announcement and are usually when connections have a new job or work anniversary.