thecallus-deactivated20130520 asks: Sorry - have to interject. Tumblr knows your browser easily, as do all websites, without accessing anything confidential. This is how, for example, sites detect if you're using a mobile browser. Tumblr is simply performing a simple browser - user pairing to identify accounts that have used the service.
» SFB says: After considering it, while the browser thing appears to be legit (we tested it and had the same thing come up), we’re not finding the language she cites inside Tumblr’s privacy policy — perhaps it existed in a prior version, but it does not exist currently. Here’s what it does say: “Like most website operators, Tumblr collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. Tumblr’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how Tumblr’s visitors use its Website.” So it seems like a half-valid point, half-invalid one. — Ernie @ SFB
Because Missing-e is connected to your browser - not your account. I only have M-e installed on Chrome. So as a test I logged on using IE, Safari and Firefox. And I still had the message telling me to ‘uninstall’ M-e. Yet my second account, which I’ve only ever used on FF, and is not connected to my email address, does not have the message at all.
According to Tumblrs privacy policy, they should not be able to access ‘users information regarding (…) extensions or third party software’. Clearly though, they have. So I think the REAL privacy problem is the fact that somehow tumblr staff are obtaining this information, which they should not be able to access, and are targeting users.
Never mind the fact that I didn’t even have Missing-E INSTALLED on three browsers, and yet the message still popped up on all of them - even after closing it again - is proof of this.
Sort your shit out tumblr
Thanks to Maurice Cherry for bringing this to our attention.
» EDIT: On second thought … while the browser thing seems pretty sketchy and certainly worthy of pointing out, the language this blogger quotes from does not seem to exist in Tumblr’s privacy policy. If you search for a quote, for example, the first results that show up are reblogs of this post. Sent her an ask to see if we’re missing something.
Third-party extensions and hacks are a part of the web, perhaps Tumblr should focus on building new features or its own official “app store” instead of whining about support and server issues.Drew Olanoff of The Next Web has Jeremy Cutler’s back on Missing e.
waskommenmag asks: Can you explain what's wrong with the missing e email you received? I'm someone who knows very very little about computers, and very little about the ramifications of whatever make you "uncomfortable" about the email you got from tumblr. I understand that missing e is an extension that allows certain editing of tumblr pages, etc., but I don't really get why you'd take offense at what tumblr sent you. It seems fairly benign and reasonable to me.
» SFB says: Because Missing e makes my life (and the lives of a lot of other people) a lot easier by offering significant improvements to the Tumblr interface, and instead of figuring out a way to take advantage of the great idea that Jeremy Cutler had, they’ve instead chosen to go this route. At one point, they completely booted him off the API and looked like they were going to sue him. There’s a long backstory here — essentially, the extension became super-popular, then Tumblr decided that it was taking up too many resources. But the problem is, ultimately, there is a significant benefit to using Missing e, which is something Tumblr has not addressed directly. Until they do so, Missing e will still have a reason to exist. As a big fan of both Tumblr and Missing e, we’re greatly disappointed by this. — Ernie @ SFB
Just received this message about Missing e, the popular browser extension which Tumblr has not taken kindly to. Kinda not comfortable with this, Tumblr. Here’s the full message, for those who haven’t seen it:
Hello! We’ve noticed you’re using a browser hack, Missing-E, that can cause serious problems for you and for Tumblr.
While we love encouraging developers to customize and build off our platform, the unsupported methods being used here create risks to your data, interfere with our ability to develop and scale Tumblr, and create a huge burden for our support team. Specifically:
Data loss: Bugs caused by unsupported hacks often affect forms that save, alter, or delete your data. This leads to incidents of corrupt themes, lost posts, and broken features that we are unable to protect against.
Privacy: Browser hacks interpose themselves between you and Tumblr, meaning they have access to your email address, password, IP address, search queries, and the contents of your private posts and Dashboard. We have no way of controlling what they do with this information.
Performance: The unsupported method of “page scraping” causes your browser to make excessive requests to Tumblr’s servers during normal browsing. When our load balancers detect this, they automatically trigger throttling to protect the servers from being overrun. This presents as errors and slower response times.
Support: Because the issues that arise often appear to be problems with Tumblr, our support team is frequently flooded with erroneous reports of problems we didn’t cause and can’t fix. To keep these from overwhelming our support team, we’ve had to begin bouncing emails from these users.
We didn’t click OK on the box. Why should we? We certainly don’t think it’s cool that they’re asking us to choose between a plugin and receiving technical support for our account.
The Best Tumblrs We’ve Ever Seen, This Year
Look I made a list! It was so much fun, I think I’ll start doing it once a week in 2012. The general gist:
Tumblr — land of teenage girls photographing their outfits in a mirror, home of the instant meme, and world of very, very pretty photographs of all things loved by hipsters — is a pretty fun place. The micro-blogging network will turn five next year, and 2011 saw its big shift from the adolescent edge of relevance to a global social media powerhouse.
Great list, with many of our favorites included.
A tough teen with a gripping story: Ben Breedlove, a high schooler with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (and a YouTube personality known for offering dating advice to others), passed away from a heart attack on Christmas Day. It was only afterward that his parents discovered these two videos from Ben in which he told stories of coping with his disease, including three near-death experiences. In his third one, above, he describes an experience, while being revived by EMS paramedics, where he was with his favorite rapper, Kid Cudi. After watching Ben’s videos and hearing about his death, the artist wrote a message about Ben on his blog. Ben’s mother said that the videos were a ”gift to us, and for him to be so confident and unafraid of death and to share it with other people was so touching.” source
Hey you guys.
Join us Posties for some cocktail conversation on U Street. We want to ring in the first workweek of 2012 with the Tumblrers of the District. And hear how much you disagree with the List.
Questions? Ask us. Interested? Reblog!
We might make it if we can swing it. But no guarantees! (We have a job!)
This is an open letter to barackobama.tumblr.com:
Please follow apsies.
Sincerely,
The Internet
Dear Internet,
You had us at Leslie Knope.
Followed.
Sincerely,
The barackobama.tumblr.com Tumblrers
In which we are reminded of how good the Obama folks are on social media.
And how convincing apsies is. We expect her to ask for world peace next, and for her many Tumblr fans to will it into reality.
(Source: imwithkanye)
Yahoo wants to buy Hulu now too. They’re going on an “I...
I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
waterman12053 says: I just tried the Iphone Flipboard app with Tumblr. Thought it was quite cool and then suddenly realized that many posts do not appear and it changed the order of them a lot. You seem to have no control over the “editing”. Not too handy, IMHO.
» SFB says: Not having that experience at all. Double checked my own feed, comparing it to the dashboard on my laptop, and it’s every post in order. Not to doubt you, but it’s not working that way for me. — Ernie @ SFB
ben says: I don’t like Tumblr in Flipboard on the iPad because it seems to arbitrarily assign importance to posts, but maybe the iPhone app is different. The current Tumblr iOS app gets the job done, but hopeful it will be better in the future.
» SFB says: That’s actually it; the problem with the Flipboard iPad app is that it seems to give content weight without having any good reason to, like an editor who doesn’t read content but just flops it on the page. We like Pulse’s iPad app far more than Flipboard for this reason. The Flipboard iPhone app, on the other hand, is more or less a top-down list of your dashboard/content, presented with flips. (There are things the Flipboard app doesn’t do for the Tumblr interface, like custom permalinks and tags, but they could easily add these features.) Now, the Tumblr app itself is OK, and is good in a pinch, but for some reason it just feels like the amount of scrolling going on is super-high. — Ernie @ SFB
The best Tumblr reading experience on your iPhone: Flipboard. For some reason the simple act of flipping just works a heckuva lot better for the simple act of reading than the infinite scroll of Tumblr’s own app. If it had just a couple more options, it’d be perfect. It’s surprising, actually, because we think Flipboard’s overrated on the iPad. It launched on the iPhone about a week ago.
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
