Archive for April, 2018

Firefox add-on to hide auctions with price variations

Thursday, April 5th, 2018

I an frustrated by auctions on eBay that list a range of prices for items. Recently I wanted to buy a bicycle signal light and almost all the auctions listed as a range of prices like $2.95 to $21.95. These are called listings with variations. The problem with them is that the lower price is usually for an very low priced item that may or may not be sort of related to the auction. To me this is Bait-and-Switch.

I got so tired of it that I wrote a Firefox add-on to hide these kinds of auctions. It uses a snippet of JavaScript to fix the page so that the auctions are still there, but they don’t show up.

I have it here for testing. If you use Firefox and you use eBay you can install it by clicking on this link: eBayVarFix (dumb name).

As an eBay page renders the auctions will initially show up and then as the page finishes they disappear.

Let me know what you think. I need a better name. If it works for a few people I will submit it to the Firefox people for listing on their add-on page.

I made a Chrome version that works, but you have to register with Google and pay a fee to get it published. I might try that when I get a more substantial version, but for now Chrome users are out of luck.

I am looking into an IE or Edge version.