Instantly enhance any website with new functionality

In our previous blog we showed how Surfly’s proxy technology could be used to change the behavior of any website on the fly. However, that was just the tip of the iceberg, and this time we will do some more fun stuff.

One of the things you can do with a sandboxing proxy is injecting custom Javascript code into web pages. Many client-side browser extensions make use of this simple, yet powerful concept. However, they require you to install the extension on your browser. The advantage of using a proxy, like Surfly, is that you don’t have to install any additional software on the client-side.

To demonstrate the possibilities of this technique, we’ve added an annotation feature to our Webtoppings service, inspired by other services such as Genius and AnnotatorJS. You can use Webtoppings to add annotation functionality to any web page!

All you need to do is click the button, add any website you want, and pick “Annotations”

You can then select any text and annotate it. 

You can also play around with our other features, such as “Privacy Protection”, “Translation”, and “Dark Mode”.

• Privacy protection: Privacy Protection actively masks browser APIs, so they do not give away specific information about your device to the tracking scripts. This means that websites cannot use this data to identify you among other visitors.
• Translation: With this feature, you can select some text on a page, and press the button to translate it to your (or any other) language.

• Dark mode: This Dark Reader port lets you apply various color themes without installing any browser extensions. Choose your favorite color scheme and this topping will apply it automatically to all the browsed pages.

The ability to inject custom Javascript code into the pages is a very powerful tool. It provides a flexible framework for changing the original behavior of web apps, or for enhancing them with new features. In combination with a sandboxing proxy, it is possible to do this without changing the original code, or installing any software on the client-side.

Surfly’s proxy is capable of even more advanced functionality. Since it has access to the raw HTTP traffic, it can do things that are impossible even for browser extensions. 

Stay tuned for more!