-
-
News Purifier Logo
Inspiration
In the recent times of the pandemic, the news has been a crucial part in our lives for understanding everything that’s going on around us. It informs us what we are allowed to do and not allowed to do, as well as crucial information such as new restrictions or lockdowns. As important as news like this can be, it adds a lot of extra stress to our lives. We are constantly being flooded with information all around the Internet, whether we like it or not. Sometimes, we just want to get away from the noise and have some peace in our lives. The solution that immediately comes to mind is disconnecting from our online presence, whether that be for an hour, a day, or even a week. However, that is extremely hard to do these days, considering a lot of our required work is online. With that in mind, I have come up with a tool called News Purifier. With the News Purifier extension, you can filter out the bad news with just a click of a button. Behind the scenes, with a list of certain keywords for certain news subjects (e.g. violence, COVID-19, etc.), we will get rid of those articles from your news feed on supported sites (see supported sites for more info). You can either choose a pre-configured keyword to replace that article (from which we will automatically choose an article for you), or you can choose to just simply remove it from your sight. This is mostly a proof of concept, with basic functionality currently implemented but a more complex foundational idea.
What it does
An extension for Google Chrome which allows you to “purify” your news feed with subjects to your liking.
How we built it
I made a website for downloading the extension using React.js, and I used Github Pages to deploy my site. I used Github for the code deployment and Github Releases to store the Chrome extension. For the extension itself, I decided to go with plain JavaScript with HTML and CSS for items such as popups and options. I used Bootstrap for faster styling in CSS.
Challenges we ran into
I was not too familiar with making extensions for Google Chrome, so I had to read a lot of documentation to understand the logic behind extensions.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
An accomplishment that I'm very proud of is getting the basic functionalities of the extension to work. I entered this project with a little bit of doubt, worrying that it won't work at all and that I would have to think of something else. However, I managed to get the basics down faster than I expected. Although I faced some bugs and roadblocks, I persevered through it and managed to solve a lot of them.
What we learned
Throughout this hackathon journey, I've learned new technologies such as making mockups with Figma, using Notion to manage my ideas, making extensions for Google Chrome, and using React more in depth.
What's next for News Purifier
- Machine learning instead of keywords
- Support for more sites
- Links to external research about mental health
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.