[Alpha] (Unofficial) Blockstack Extension - Released!

MichaelFedora · June 4, 2018, 3:27am

Unofficial Blockstack Extension

Alpha Notice

This extension is in alpha, and may accidently overwrite your profile.json resulting in loss of:

Profile Name
Profile Bio
Social Verifications
Ability for people who you shared files with to view those files
Breaking apps that rely on multi-player data storage

Don’t use your normal Blockstack ID to test this with!

This is a web extension to add Blockstack support to the Web Browser by making it so a user can log into the browser and authenticate apps via popup windows instead of through https://browser.blockstack.org/ or having to run their own instance of the Blockstack Browser. This makes the experience much more native and easy to use!

Currently you can not edit your profile or manage your wallet. This is more of a proof of concept then a finished product, and it may have bugs; use it at your own risk!

Downloads

Features

Creating/Recovering Accounts
Securely storing Backup Phrase using AES-192 encryption
Managing Multiple Identities
App Authentication
App lookup via blockstack-browser’s repo

Known Issues

I take no responsibility for bad things happening to your profile.json! Use at your own risk!

No way to edit or update profile, register names, use wallet, etc
- Main component is still WIP and in /src_archive for now.
Sometimes profile parsing will bug and the extension will upload a new one, overriding your old profile

Story

Hey everyone!

For fun over this first part of the summer I’ve worked on translating the logic within the Blockstack Browser into a web extension, mostly because I found the Windows implementation of the Browser to be… a little disappointing and hard to work with. I also thought that such an implementation would be much more user friendly, kind of how MetaMask is for Eth.

Built with Vue.js, Vuex, and Typescript, this runs off of the WebExtensionAPI, so it should be cross-browser compatible (even on mobile!).

You can see the preview of how it works here (or click to get higher-res gyfcat version):

Thanks for reading, and if you have any comments or questions, leave them below!

_{^{– soli deo gloria}}

larry · June 4, 2018, 8:00am

This is amazing @MichaelFedora, great work! Can’t wait to try this out!

jehunter5811 · June 4, 2018, 10:48am

Whoa! This is incredible. I want to try this as soon as you’re willing to share!

guylepage3 · June 4, 2018, 2:26pm

Very cool @MichaelFedora!

sebastian · June 4, 2018, 2:48pm

Awesome, @MichaelFedora!

insip.id · June 4, 2018, 6:51pm

Amazing work! This is really important for lowering barriers to entry, great job.

jorishermans · June 4, 2018, 7:24pm

Cool, I like it! Indeed this will be important for lowering barriers

Kitsana · June 4, 2018, 9:13pm

Wow…incredible work! Excited to see it come to fruition and to test it out.

mehmetkose · June 4, 2018, 10:42pm

Wow this is really cool.

dant · June 6, 2018, 1:31am

Love this. Cant wait to see more.

blockchain.id · June 6, 2018, 3:18am

Wow! Awesome! I can’t wait to try it out

MichaelFedora · June 15, 2018, 8:45pm

Release day! I’ve done all I want to do on it for now… don’t have enough time to do everything =(

Due note that there are a little bit of bugs that sometimes it will fail in parsing your profile and upload a new one, overriding your old profile - I take no responsibility for this happening! Use at your own risk!

Otherwise, hope you guys enjoy it! Not a replacement for the main browser (see: profiles), but it’s still quite fun to use.

Kitsana · June 15, 2018, 11:59pm

This is freaking awesome, dude! Great work. I installed it…lots of fun and very convenient to use. Thank you!

MichaelFedora · June 18, 2018, 4:17pm

If anyone has concerns about how their Keychain Phrase is used, you can look here in the source (along with the rest of the file):

github.com

MichaelFedora/unofficial-blockstack-extension/blob/master/src/popup/app/app.ts#L159-L177


initializeWallet() {
  console.log('Initializing Wallet!');
  let masterKeychain: HDNode = null;
  if(this.phrase && validateMnemonic(this.phrase)) {
    const seedBuffer = mnemonicToSeed(this.phrase);
    masterKeychain = HDNode.fromSeedBuffer(seedBuffer);
  } else if(!this.phrase) {
    this.phrase = generateMnemonic(128, randomBytes);
    const seedBuffer = mnemonicToSeed(this.phrase);
    masterKeychain = HDNode.fromSeedBuffer(seedBuffer);
  } else {
    throw new Error('Tried to initialize a wallet with a bad phrase');
  }
  return encrypt(this.phrase, this.pass).then(encryptedBackupPhrase => {
    console.log('Creating account w/ enc phrase: ' + encryptedBackupPhrase + '!');
    return dispatch('account/createAccount',
          { email: this.email, encryptedBackupPhrase, masterKeychain: masterKeychain.toBase58() });
  });
},

friedger · June 19, 2018, 8:21am

Thank you for the assurance!

ShankarGanesh_PJ · June 20, 2018, 6:41am

Great work and When it will be official

MichaelFedora · August 8, 2018, 9:31pm

Hey Everyone,

I got sponsored by Blockstack PBC! This means that I will continue to work on updates at least until 2019, with monetary support. For now I will be working towards getting this to a more stable and feature rich state before releasing v2, so it will be a “full product” instead of just a proof-of-concept.

Here’s a preview of what I’ve done and will be doing:

The Blockstack Browser App API got overly complicated to use so we’re switching over to app.co’s
- This means the total list of apps will be smaller, unfortunately, but it’s more “future-proof”
The next update will be more friendly with your profile.json and will ask you before overwriting it if it has issues (it shouldn’t!)
Lots of depedencies were upgraded and the popup got a small facelift
The next update will be a little while but will contain a new “main component” where you will be able to do more things like
- Manage your profile, wallets, and alternate IDs
- Pin favorite apps, look at all the available apps, and have a bigger search (instead of limiting it to 5 or so)
Name Registration will not be coming in this update, but will be in the next major one.

Thank you all for your support!

MichaelFedora · December 16, 2018, 7:55pm

Version 2 of the Unofficial Blockstack Extension has been released. We are now in Beta!

For some reason I am unable to edit the OP, but otherwise we finally made it!

2.0 has been released on Chrome already but I’m having issues releasing it on Firefox, but that doesn’t matter because currently it wouldn’t work on Firefox due to an error in Blockstack.js.

Otherwise, you can see the release here in source.

Changelog

Main component has been added
- Ability to manage your BTC wallet
- Ability to manage multiple identities/profiles
- Ability to view/search apps in an easier fashion than through the popup
Added the ability to pin apps
Switched to app.co instead of Blockstack PBC’s internal Api
Added the ability to view pass phrase, change password, change Api endpoints, and change account email in the popup settings

And many other smaller changes/fixes. Thanks for your support!

MichaelFedora · January 9, 2019, 4:52pm

2.1 has been released to both Firefox and Chrome!

I’ve updated the dependencies and reduced the file size by ~5mb by splitting chunks, so now it is updated on both platforms. Unfortunately the error in Blockstack.js is still there so while it is updated it is currently unusable.

Thank you all for the support!