[Announcement] Steem Curation Extension graduates to beta: Find it now in the official Chrome Web Store

Bottom Line Up Front: The Steem Curation Extension is now available for download in the Chrome Web Store.

This means that anyone with a Chromium-based browser can install it with just a few clicks.

Chromium-based browsers include the Brave Browser, Microsoft Edge, and Google Chrome (among others).

Happily, the Steem Curation Extension no longer requires the browser to be in developer mode in order to operate.

Along with publishing the extension in the web store, I also bumped the version from alpha to beta, since it is possible for more people to test it out now. The current release version is 0.5.0-beta.

Overview

The browser extension has been around for three years now, and I've been using it steadily in my Brave browser for the entire time. It has also had some other usage by some courageous Steemizens, but it always required "developer mode" in the browser, so uptake was difficult or impossible for most people.

When first developed, its only purpose was to help a curator to easily identify - at a glance - which posts in a feed have @null beneficiaries and which ones have been sent to /promoted by burning SBDs.

In order to do this, it applies some coloring to the post borders as well as the reward information panel that's linked to a post on the condenser web site:

@null beneficiary	/promoted

Obviously, it still does this, but over the years, some other features have also been added. This expansion has been assisted by efforts from @cmp2020 and by @moecki. Both of whom are set as beneficiaries on this post.

Also, the browser extension uses SDS data from @steemchiller, so I've set him as a beneficiary here, too.

Let's take a look at the additional features.

I'm going from memory, here, so I apologize in advance if I miss anything or don't credit someone properly. Please let me know if any adjustments are needed.

To be clear, all of the following features are available if you visit any of the following web sites with the Steem Curation Extension browser extension enabled:

• https://steemit.com
• https://steemitdev.com
• https://steemit.steemnet.org/
• https://steemit.moecki.online

Contributor	Feature
@moecki	Show numbers of promotions in the post's reward information panel

Unfortunately, I don't have an example available to show in a screenshot, but @moecki added a display in the post's information overlay so that it now shows how many people have promoted a post, in addition to the post's promotion amount.

It also shows whether it was promoted by the post's author, or whether all promotions came from other accounts.

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Contributor	Feature
@remlaps and @moecki	Display available voting power

By clicking on the profile icon, a curator can see their own available voting power.

This data comes from SDS, so it reflects regeneration accurately as time passes after an account's most recent vote.

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Contributor	Feature
@remlaps	Toggle resteem visibility in user feeds and blog pages

Resteems Shown	Resteems Hidden

In a user's feed or in their blog page, the curation extension enables us to include or exclude posts that have been resteemed. This operates on the feed or blog of any account, not just the one that's logged in.

@the-gorilla later provided similar functionality with a "Hide Resteems" button in condenser, but for now the extension's "Show Resteems" button is overriding condenser's "Hide Resteems". This is because it provides a little bit more functionality with regard to scrolling, and also because it controls resteem visibility on the blog page as well as the feed page.

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Contributor	Feature
@remlaps	Curator's overlay: presents information about authors, follower networks, and voters

The information has already been discussed in some detail, here and here. For today, here is a quick summary:

Post info

• word count and reading time
• numbers of images, links, and tags,
• list of tags

Audience, votes, and values

• Number of resteems
• Feed reach (sum of author's followers, all resteemers' followers, and community members)
• $ / feed (the post value divided by the feed reach). This is somewhat analogous to "price per view" on traditional social media sites - and of course, the blockchain is making the payments.
• Number and percentage of voting on the post by paid voting services
• Number and percentage of Steemit accounts voting on the post
• Organic value (total value minus votes by paid voting services)

Author info

• Number of posts
• Comments / post (total comments divided by total posts)
• Replies / post (total replies divided by total posts)

Wallet Info

• Author's account type (nanoplankton, plankton, redfish, minnow, dolphin, etc..). If the account type is changed by delegations, that's also shown (as in the screen shot)
• Current power down percentage

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Contributor	Feature
@cmp2020 and @remlaps	Post specific metrics and visualizations

I'll just copy from last week's programming diary instead of generating new screenshots.

Information	Pictures (from various posts)
word count and reading time
Enhanced voting information
List of resteemers
Voting history graphs
Previous Week Payout History

I think that's everything. Please let me know if there's anything I missed.

Cautionary note

Browser extensions can do almost anything your browser can do. This means that they can have security problems and other bugs (or even be malicious). To the best of my knowledge, this extension is safe, but as the saying goes, "I don't know what I don't know." So (as with any browser extension), decide carefully whether to install it and what permissions to give it.

The code is open source, so everyone is welcome to review it and let me know if there are any security concerns.

It is very highly recommended to login to condenser with just your posting authority or the Steem Keychain (don't use owner or active keys or your master password), and I definitely do not recommend giving any untrusted browser extension access to any page where your master password, active keys, or owner keys are in use.

This extension does not require or request any keys, but some functionality (voting power) depends on having a logged in account.

Short version: Use only your posting authority on steemit.com, and do not give any browser extension that you don't trust access to the steemitwallet.com website.

Conclusion

Although it still feels fairly basic, the Steem Curation Extension has come a long way since my first draft in 2022. From its origin as a simple tool to easily identify posts that were utilizing the blockchain's burn mechanisms, it has evolved into a more robust extension that now provides a smorgasbord of information to curators.

Now that the extension is available in the Chrome Store, just about anyone can install it easily.

I'd like to say thank you to @moecki, @cmp2020, and @steemchiller for helping me get it to this point. I hope that the extension will help many Steem curators to make informed voting decisions, and I hope it will provide a mechanism for authors to use the blockchain's "burn" mechanisms as tools that provide more visibility for their posts.

Please try it out and let me know about your experience with the tool.

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Thank you for your time and attention.

As a general rule, I up-vote comments that demonstrate "proof of reading".

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^{Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.}

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