A plugin for Chrome. Proactive!
I only see the regular full description, and never see (or have seen) the button in:
- WinXP in normal workhorse daily driver Firefox v3.6.24 - signed in
- WinXP in normal workhorse daily driver Firefox v3.6.24 spoofed as iPad- signed in
- Win10 phone in Opera Mini 9.1.0.232 - signed in
- Win10 phone in Edge Browser v40.15063.414.0 - not signed in
- Win10 phone in UCBrowser v4.2.1.541 - not signed in
- WinXP in FF v2.0.20, FF v11, FF v31, FF v52, Opera v11.61, or IE8 - not signed in (Only tried a couple of search item pages in those other browsers though)
- WinXP in FF v11 using my other account - signed in and not signed in
<rant>
Don't use Chrome and probably never will again. Tried it when first came out, and although have been a google search engine user since the very first days, can't trust google as far as I can throw them with privacy - not Gmail, not Chrome, not Android. I Block google javascript and cookies in most instances, and googleapis, doubleclick, googleanalytics, and all the other Google web-wide tracking domains and content (visit a website that took the lazy way out and used googleapis for some web page functionality, and google has the ability to know you were there via browser fingerprinting/IP, etc and add that to your profile. Looking at pvc diapers for giraffes were you? Hmmm.) Could set Chrome up in a restricted Sandbox, and play with it for testing issues like this, but would never use it as an emergency backup involving any thing like eBay, email, or anything else where PI can be data mined, so a mostly pointless exercise for me (mostly).
</rant>
Back to the issue at hand:
From reading the various threads over the last little while on the "description button" issue:
- It very well may be account specific. My normal account and other account don't appear to be in the test so never see it and can't test.
- If account specific, my other tests with other browsers not signed in don't matter (assumption is eBay servers NOT serving up item pages with the button when visitor is not signed in)
- Test or glitch, it appears it may also be browser dependent. Assumption here is that it's browser user-agent controlled. If your account is in the test the servers also check browser user-agent to decide which version you see. (That doesn't reconcile with, for example, some reporting that it happens in Chrome while other say switching to Chrome made it go away)
- Clearing cookies and history. Could be indicative of it being a test with a glitch. Account is in the test, servers drop cookie and/or test specific content (js, html) on your machine and you see the button. You clear cookies/cache, reload page, and it's gone. Maybe gone because cookie is gone and/or not all paths to a page are serving up the content all the time? (weak logic I know)
Noticed something different about search item URLs tonight that may be indicitive of something. A normal eBay item URL only need to be of the form:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Logitech-MX518-Gaming-Gamers-Mouse-1800-dpi-USB-Optical-Mouse-Windows-PS-2-/332286641107
with item title and item number components.
Search now returns URLs of the form:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Logitech-MX518-Gaming-Gamers-Mouse-1800-dpi-USB-Optical-Mouse-Windows-PS-2-/332286641107?epid=529893085&hash=item4d5dd3c3d3:g:rEQAAOSwvflZVY9I
with additional parameters (variables) - I presume for tracking of some sort, and appears to be something buried in there that affects how the page is presented - width, size of main photo, 3 vs 6 thumbnail photos under the main photo, etc (just discovered this and don't have time to run the dozens of browser/URL/signed-in or out/etc combinations involved to see if anything useful lies therein)
The "epid" parameter is something new - never seen it before (check any bookmarked item pages you may have). Don't know how new or if it coincides with the "description button" appearance or not (since I don't see the button 🙂
Maybe someone who is seeing the button can play with removing that parameter (and others) from the URL, reload the page, and see what happens. Try that and then clear cookies and see again. Rinse, lather,repeat.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Logitech-MX518-Gaming-Gamers-Mouse-1800-dpi-USB-Optical-Mouse-Windows-PS-2-/332286641107?epid=529893085&hash=item4d5dd3c3d3:g:rEQAAOSwvflZVY9I
leave the "?" but remove "epid=529893085&" to end up with
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Logitech-MX518-Gaming-Gamers-Mouse-1800-dpi-USB-Optical-Mouse-Windows-PS-2-/332286641107?hash=item4d5dd3c3d3:g:rEQAAOSwvflZVY9I
then maybe remove the "hash" parameter and any others appearing in your item URLs and see.
In general: http://www.ebay.com/itm/blahblahblah?parameter1¶meter2
"?" indicate following parameters "&" chains a following parameter
parameters are usually name-value pairs like "foo=bar" or "foo=bar:445566-frodobaggins"
Doubtful the above will do anything, but who knows? Also pondering what the "ep" in "epid" represents. Variable names usually carry some meaning for reference purposes (except when bad guys are obfuscating or programmer is lazy/insane). Maybe short for EPicfail?
Out of curiousity I really kinda want to see the button, to see what exactly is happening on those pages, to see if the user-agent (or javascript browser fingerprinting) theory holds water, and to see if a simple css or js fix or redirection would take care of it, but I can't. Others would have to do the footwork.
There COULD/MAY (not saying there is, but possibly) be a simple workaround (automatic redirection, 10 lines of Stylish CSS rules, 20 line GreaseMonkey script, or automatic useragent spoofing via UAControl addon in FF) that would effectively make it a non-issue for some (other than buyers seeing it and the "didn't see/read the description" damage that can cause).
The "description button" is a stupid idea even on mobile. I suspect it is meant to be targeted to mobile devices only, but it appears that poor coding has it infesting desktop views (if it is intentional for desktop views I'm speechless).
Hopefully either the bad coding will be fixed and desktop viewers will see the normal description, or the whole idea will be abandoned.
