Greasemonkey script locks down GMail!

Yes! Greasemonkey rocks!. Its an extension for firefox, which can do wonders. It basically lets you execute user defined scripts, which can change the functionality of the web-page loaded in the browser. For eg, in GMail, one can add an extra button to delete mails (instead of selecting move to trash from the drop down list).

I installed Greasemonkey a couple of days back, and installed some ready made scripts including butler!. Its really useful. For yahoo mail, there is a script which hides the Ads in the free version. Cool!……na!

Now, coming to GMail… I had installed a couple of ready made scripts for gmail. Specially one called Smart-Delete. I had wished long long back for a delete button. Suddenly, this script made it possible. Similarly, one more script for a button called “Mark as read”. And one more script to remove off all the ads!.

Now, somehow, gmail was able to detect that i was running greasemonkey, and one or more of these scripts were violating the gmail TOS!… I never thought about it !!!………. and then… they made me aware of it by locking down my gmail account – Lock Down in Sector 4 !…

Then wrote to their support, to get a automated reply. Again replied to that message., and now, after a couple of hours, my account is unlocked, and is back to normal.

Only problem… i am still not sure why it happened!. Its definitely got to do with one of the greasemonkey scripts!. Mostly its got to do with the timer functionality of the script, which has been taken care of in the latest version. The script tried to refresh the data from the server too often!

So, just keep this in mind when you install such scripts in future. Just make sure that you done violate the TOS!

1 comment | June 12th, 2005 at 03:51pm