This Browser Extension Hides “questionable” Products on Amazon.
When shopping on Amazon, you inevitably have to sift through numerous ads and products of dubious quality or from obscure brands with confusing names before you find what you’re looking for. Well-known and trustworthy brands often get lost in the noise, so unless you’re conducting a very specific search, it will take some effort to filter out the worthwhile products from the undesirable ones.
A new browser extension called Knockoff is designed to help you with this process. It obscures or hides products from questionable and unknown brands, making it easier to find reputable manufacturers.
The Knockoff filter filters out pseudo-branded ads.
Knockoff, available for Chrome and Firefox, works by matching Amazon listings against a registry of 5,000 well-known brands. Pseudo-brands—for example, those with all-caps names, silent consonant combinations, and disappearing vowels—as well as unbranded products are flagged as suspicious.
Depending on the settings you choose, Knockoff will flag, obscure, or completely remove these ads from Amazon search results. You can also hide sponsored ads and set a list of allowed and blocked brands that you always or never want to see. The “Leisure” filter removes only the worst offenders and products from your blocked list, while the “Standard” filter also detects suspicious names and unbranded ads. If you choose “Strict,” you’ll only see items on your allowed list.
The extension, created by developer Josh Pigford, runs locally on your device, doesn’t require you to sign in, and doesn’t track your search activity. It’s also free and open-source, and it incorporates community feedback to maintain an up-to-date list of carefully selected “safe” brands.
Unknown brands are not necessarily bad.
While Knockoff filters out some irrelevant information, it’s worth noting that not all products it detects are necessarily bad, and you don’t necessarily have to ignore every seller who isn’t a well-known brand. For example, Joel Cunningham, an e-book reviewer at Lifehacker, noted that, at least at the time of publication, the extension blocks products from Xteink, a Chinese company that produces a line of pocket-sized e-readers that have gained popularity in recent months .
If you use the “with tags” or “with darkening” settings, you can still view and compare filtered products, as well as look for other trust indicators before purchasing. For example, you should read recent reviews, check the seller’s profile, view price history, and compare product features in addition to the listing title.