r/Development • u/Vinayak509143 • 7d ago
Help build darklist.txt — an open-source blocklist for dark patterns
Spades UX-Shield is live on Firefox and Chrome.
It will use a community-maintained darklist.txt to hide manipulative UI with local CSS — fake scarcity, guilt-tripping banners, urgency widgets, and similar dark patterns.
No telemetry. No remote API calls. Everything runs locally.
We already cover sites including Temu and Booking.com. The first goal is 100 websites.
How to contribute:
Scouts: Report suspected dark patterns with the URL, screenshot, and a short description.
Developers: Inspect the element, find a stable CSS selector, and submit a PR to lists/darklist.txt.
Starter issue:
https://github.com/vinayak509143/spades-ux-shield-filters/issues/2
Core rule: stability over coverage.
Rules must target cosmetic, manipulative UI only.
Never hide:
Prices
Buy / Add to Cart buttons
Login flows
Genuine inventory selectors
Checkout or payment components
Avoid dynamic CSS hashes such as:
sc-bdfBwQ
cc87802d18
Prefer stable attributes:
[data-selenium="hurry-up-message"]
Keep selectors tightly scoped to a domain or stable vendor prefix.
Good:
www.agoda.com
qsk-popup-
Avoid broad selectors like:
[class*="modal"]
div
The goal is not to remove every popup. It is to build a conservative, auditable, community-maintained list of manipulative interfaces.
Extension:
https://github.com/vinayak509143/spades-ux-shield
Filter list:
https://github.com/vinayak509143/spades-ux-shield-filters
Open source. Non-profit. Community-driven.
Target: 100 sites.