Hack the user cursor
Games
browser prank demo
SHOW HN2017
How HN took it
19 positive, 13 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 17 critical, out of 51 comments about the project. Thread score +0.07.
Idea: 10 for, 3 againstExecution: 3 for, 9 againstDesign: 2 for, 3 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Clever and creative hack
From 2 comments
Having a look at the poster's github reveals this person has a lot of good stuff. Very creative and clever.
19eightyfour on HNPretty smart once you figure out how it works. Wonder if there's some kind of advanced click-jacking attack you could achieve with a technique like this.
bluepnume on HN
Delightfully annoying and fun
From 2 comments
Two words - "Delightfully Annoying" !! :)
cyberferret on HNSo much fun I had, thank you ;)
thenormal on HN
Repel effect is funny
From 1 comment
The repel was the funniest things I have seen all day.
sml156 on HN
Could work as a game mechanic
From 1 comment
This could be used as a good game mechanic. Nicely done!
jv22222 on HN
Objections
Could enable dark patterns
From 2 comments
Nicely done. Not to give anyone any ideas, but the 'gravity'/'attract' mode could be used for some very dark UI patterns.
ohadron on HNThe repel could be dangerous too. There are plenty of features that websites are legally or ethically obligated to provide, but they would rather users not use them. I'm…
rosalinekarr on HN
Could break assistive tech like high contrast or large cursors
From 1 comment
You would risk messing up the use of assistive technologies like high contrast and oversized cursors. That is the opposite of helpful.
Freak_NL on HN
Could be used to trick voters in voting terminals
From 1 comment
This would be great in voting terminals. Everything seems normal until you try to vote for someone hackers don't like.
lutusp on HN
Requests
Fix display of both real and fake cursors in Firefox
From 3 comments
On Firefox I get two cursors, I'm unsure which is the one that will actually do something if I click.
ars on HNIs this broken for anyone else on firefox? I see both the fake cursor and the real cursor.
gruez on HNTrick doesn't work on Firefox 52: original cursor is visible as well as the fake one Works on Chrome, though
Fry-kun on HN
Fix rendering on high-DPI displays
From 1 comment
Cool idea! This seems to work oddly for high-DPI displays: the cursor is microscopic and doesn't seem to escape the viewport.
chias on HN
Questions
Does it still work over HTTPS and in Safari
From 3 comments
Nice hack. It's not obvious whether it still works now that GitHub Pages uses HTTPS, though the fact that clicking on the page triggers the same action as clicking the page…
nsgi on HNThat does seem to be the case for me (at least on Safari 9.1); the real cursor disappears, but no fake cursor appears.
Nemo157 on HNThe demo works fine on Safari 10 for me.
hrrsn on HN
Alternatives named
cursory-hack, a related CSS cursor hack by another commenter
From 1 comment
This hack works by disabling the real cursor (using a custom CSS cursor image set to a transparent png), then moving around a fake cursor image using JS. See by comparison this…
jamesfisher on HN