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PC Gamer
PC Gamer
James Bentley

This Chrome extension hides 'knockoff' brands on Amazon: 'Sorry to brands like WNPETHOME, EHEYCIGA, YXY'

Palo Alto, CA, USA - Feb 18, 2020: The Amazon logo seen at Amazon campus in Palo Alto, California. The Palo Alto location hosts A9 Search, Amazon Web Services, and Amazon Game Studios teams.

If shopping on Amazon has become a bit difficult because you keep inadvertently adding knock-off brands to your basket, there's now a Google Chrome extension to help.

Shared on X by creator Josh Pigford, once added to your browser, Knockoff.shopping declares the name of the brand on the listing. That means you no longer have to click in to verify it. It also greys out any brands that are not trusted or generally known for making knock-offs.

Pigford says "Sorry to brands like WNPETHOME, EHEYCIGA, YXYL, LU&MN, JOYIN, TOMY, GODONLIF, YOOJEE, LINGTENG, LANEIGE, VISCOO, BIODANCE, COOFANDY, BALENNZ, TOSY and LUENX".

As you might be able to tell, the naming conventions are part of how people catch knock-off brands. All capitals, random letters, and otherwise nonsensical names are a dead giveaway.

Effectively, the extension is a curated list of more than 5,000 brands, which are refreshed daily, with real brands being whitelisted and very new or potentially dodgy brands being flagged. The list is accessible in plain text, and it relies on community reporting to fix itself over time. That means if a trusted brand is accidentally caught in the filter, one can reach out to correct that mistake.

The browser extension is also built to allow a level of customisation, so you can set restriction levels, entirely hide (or just dim) knock-off brands, and even hide sponsored ads at the top of search. I can't tell you how many times I've searched for something and been fed something entirely irrelevant in the sponsored ads spot, so I'm quite grateful for a feature that hides it.

Notably, you can make your own custom lists too, so if you like a particular brand that is labelled a knock-off, you can personally let it through the filter. Not all knockoffs are bad, of course. That's especially true if the listing has been around for some time and has seemingly authentic reviews.

But still, arming users with more information before shopping can only be a good thing. I've tested it myself on a quick window shopping session, and I'm rather impressed so far.

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