The Hacker News: Microsoft Warns of Web Skimmers Mimicking Google Analytics and Meta Pixel Code. “Threat actors behind web skimming campaigns are leveraging malicious JavaScript code that mimics Google Analytics and Meta Pixel scripts in an attempt to sidestep detection.”
The Register: JavaScript library updated to wipe files from Russian computers. “The developer of JavaScript library node-ipc, which is used by the popular vue.js framework, deliberately introduced a critical security vulnerability that, for some netizens, would destroy their computers’ files.”
CogDogBlog: Could Not Stop Making Bookmarklet Tools. “I was a bit excited to push out my recent bookmarklet tool experiment. The reception was kind. I was hasty in the naming of it in github tying to google images because as alluded to, I realized I could make a new one for searching Openverse (the updated version of Creative Commons CC Search).”
CogDogBlog: A CC Only Google Images Bookmarklet By Request. “Hmmm, someone pressed the 3 button. This is an outflow of the recent hand tossed post about my hackly idea for making Google Image search server only Creative Commons licensed results…. @ResearchBuzz tossed in the request line. I have to give Tara a listen as I have been pilgering links and resources from her site since the beginning of web time.” It always weirds me out when I guest star in my own newsletter.
Free Software Foundation: FSF announces JShelter browser add-on to combat threats from nonfree JavaScript. “The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced the JShelter project, an anti-malware Web browser extension to mitigate potential threats from JavaScript, including fingerprinting, tracking, and data collection. The project is supported by NLnet Foundation’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) Zero Privacy & Trust Enhancing Technologies fund. Collaborators include Libor Polčák and Bednář Martin (Brno University of Technology), Giorgio Maone (NoScript), and Ana Isabel Carvalho and Ricardo Lafuente (Manufactura Independente). The JShelter browser add-on is in development and the first release is available.”
BusinessWire: New Open Source Library Makes Data Visualization Attainable for Any JavaScript Developer (PRESS RELEASE). “Observable, the collaborative data visualization company, today launched the beta version of Observable Plot, an open-source JavaScript library that enables developers to easily create visual representations to explore and interpret data.”
Smashing Magazine: The Guide To Ethical Scraping Of Dynamic Websites With Node.js And Puppeteer. “For a lot of web scraping tasks, an HTTP client is enough to extract a page’s data. However, when it comes to dynamic websites, a headless browser sometimes becomes indispensable. In this tutorial, we will build a web scraper that can scrape dynamic websites based on Node.js and Puppeteer.”
Geospatial World: Mapbox, once an open-source competitor to Google Maps, is no longer free. “Mapbox GL JS, a JavaScript library for vector maps on the web, is no longer free. Mapbox announced on December 8th, 2020, that they are moving their Mapbox GL JS library from a BSD license to a new more commercial license.”
Digital Inspiration: How to Encrypt and Decrypt Text Strings with JavaScript. “In one of my web projects, I require simple and easy-to-implement encryption and decryption JavaScript library that could encode a piece of text and then decode the encoded string on the server-side. The easiest option is the base64 encoding scheme that can be easily implemented in both native JavaScript and Google Apps Script.”
Digital Inspiration: Write Google Scripts using Modern JavaScript ES6. “Google Apps Script has received a significant upgrade ever since it was first released to the public more than a decade ago. Apps Script now uses the V8 JavaScript Engine – it is the same runtime that is used inside the Google Chrome browser and the popular Node.js environment.”
Search Engine Journal: JavaScript Indexing Delays Are Still an Issue for Google . “With Googlebot running on the most recent version of Chrome and JavaScript content being indexed faster than ever, it’s apparent that Google is getting better at indexing JavaScript. It feels like SEO professionals are finally reaching the happy ending to a long and complicated movie. Unfortunately, this movie has a twist: JavaScript indexing delays are still a massive issue.”
Kottke: Javascript Library for Creating XKCD-Style Charts. “Tim Qian has created a Javascript library called chart.xkcd for making charts that look hand-drawn in the style of XKCD.”
Newswise: Browser Tool Aims To Help Researchers ID Malicious Websites, Code. “Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed an open-source tool that allows users to track and record the behavior of JavaScript programs without alerting the websites that run those programs. The tool, called VisibleV8, runs in the Chrome browser and is designed to detect malicious programs that are capable of evading existing malware detection systems.”
Neowin: Google brings Grasshopper programming instruction tool to the desktop. “With the expansion onto the desktop, two new classes have been added to Grasshopper which are specifically designed for use on desktops and laptops and use a code editor. The aim of the classes is to give an introduction to developing webpages. The Intro to Webpages course will teach users the basics of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in order to get them building simple webpages.”
