Comments on: Experts Exchange Encryption

By: BogoJoker » Greasemonkey - Clicky Mouseover Menus

BogoJoker » Greasemonkey - Clicky Mouseover Menus — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:44:04 +0000

[...] recent fun with JavaScript at work and a co-workers really neat Greasemonkey script for Revealing Experts Exchange comments propelled me to write this very simple script. Mine pales in comparison to CoderJoe’s EE [...]

By: coderjoe

coderjoe — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:32:22 +0000

@bypasser

They no longer cypher their answers.
After the article they output “hidden” answers, then some adds.
After the advertisements they output the full answers in plain text.

Cheers.

By: bypasser

bypasser — Mon, 26 May 2008 15:03:02 +0000

it’s not working now @ 26 May 2008, the answers are in mess. Maybe they change the cipher algorithm

By: echo

echo — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:23:05 +0000

Use Firefox
+ following extensions:
1. NoScript – disallow all scripts on experts-exchange
2. CookieSafe – disallow all cookies from experts-exchange

Just scroll right down below the scrambled answers and the linkfarm.

They also have the accepted answer marked.

By: Experts Exchange Part 2

Experts Exchange Part 2 — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:41:55 +0000

[...] strategy. Where they would once display the normal solutions to a question hidden under a weak rot13 encryption, they have finally chosen to hide the articles all out unless one signs up for an [...]

By: coderjoe

coderjoe — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:25:15 +0000

@nico5038:

I’m actually glad they’ve covered the content. At least now their site is a little more honest about what they want to provide to the normal unregistered user.

Because the free content now shows the same as their site’s intentions I have no reason to play with it any further.

I’m glad the script was of some use for some while though.

Thanks for reading.

By: nico5038

nico5038 — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 22:45:17 +0000

Looks like they’re really active at Experts-Exchange as they now have stopped the blurring and replaced all comments by a “signup” message:
—————————————-
All comments and solutions are available to Premium Service Members only. Sign-up to view the solution to this question.

Already a member? Login to view this solution.
—————————————-
After that All the Topic Area’s are displayed and then at the bottom the “normal” comments are available so Google can’t exclude them because of cloaking…

Guess your script needs now to remove the first set of comments and the TopicArea list…

For more issues with Experts-Exchange you’re invited to read my Blog:
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,2000342184b,00.htm

As a free cumbersome alternative you might checkout http://www.TheScripts.com where more and more “old” EE experts are joining.

Nic;o)

By: coderjoe

coderjoe — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 04:10:49 +0000

@bonitoyu

Thanks for visiting and I’m glad you enjoyed the script.

Unfortunately, as described in the blog post, Experts Exchange replaces the “approved answer” with an advertisement to join Experts Exchange if you aren’t logged in.

Because of this you will never be able to view the “approved answer” without getting an Experts Exchange account.

Because Experts Exchange doesn’t physically output the accepted answer there’s nothing my (or any) Greasemonkey script could do to help in those situations.

Sorry.

By: bonitoyu

bonitoyu — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:35:29 +0000

Thank you for providing this useful script. I tried it but it looks that there are some answers still unreadable.

For example:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Web/Web_Languages/JavaScript/Q_21776703.html

The answers after the ads could not readable. Not sure if it is related to the script.

By: coderjoe

coderjoe — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 02:35:22 +0000

Thanks Jay, glad you enjoyed it. I definitely think Experts Exchange would do themselves a huge favor by just exposing the answers which were not selected as the final answer.

I can understand why they would want to hide the answers as part of their business model, but it just seems so counter productive.