Herd Immunity

Inspiration

The base inspiration for this project was the new phenomenon where users see what they want due to AI and other high level algorithms that exploit the human brain. We wanted to let the users control their browsing experience once again.

What it does

This extension directly prompts the user to pay attention to the website they decide to visit by providing a score that is decided by various internal factors like speed and location.

How we built it

we built this project using HTML,type script and CSS. We created a Chrome extension (Manifest V3) with a background/service worker that detects navigation and a full-screen HTML/CSS UI that displays the rating. We also used JavaScript alongside TypeScript.

Challenges we ran into

As all 4 of us are complete beginners, we were not entirely aware with practices, methods and limitations of browser extensions. for example, our original idea to score the websites could not be implemented in an extension due to chrome limitations. So we had no choice to implement a bandaid fix.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are so proud of the final product being functional, not to mention the scraper that we designed worked very well even though it did not make it into the extension. we were really able to do a lot with languages that we were completely unfamiliar with.

What we learned

chrome extension have strict limitations, doing more research on basics and coding practices to ensure collaboration is seamless between teammates and we really learned a lot about completely new languages.

What's next for Herd Immunity

the next steps for Herd Immunity are to provide a scalable measuring system that allows for more criteria to be processed. things like company bias, political stances, phishing scams, fake sales, suggestive wording and most importantly a community centered method of grading methods. the idea is to build out and have communities provided updated grades on websites by their contribution. for example a good company that is reputable may still be known for data harvesting, so yes its fast and safe but it is private and truly good? Giving more options to de bias and take control of our browsing experience is the ultimate goal of Herd Immunity.