▲ ▼ Identifying letter O from 0 and vice versa
Often I come across a situation on the web where I have to spend time deciphering whether the character is English alphabet O or the number 0 but almost always get it wrong. Due to seemingly unlimited number of fonts on the web, websites especially one involving some random alphanumeric codes often suffer from this issue.
I think, this is purposeful for captcha to deliberately put automated tools into misery; but this happens way too often with general text i.e those which are not in captcha as well.
I would like to have some kind of tool, which helps me differentiate 0 from O and vice versa on demand.
I made an extension that could help solve this problem
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/letterinfo/lgfiogkobjanmdmafoghaioeomekpmhl
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Simply enter a letter to view it's description.
You can enter a letter either by clicking the box in the bottom left hand corner and then typing something,
or by selecting a letter (on the web page you're currently viewing) and then opening the extension
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I'm always looking for suggestions and bug reports
If you think there's something the extension should have or encounter a problem, please let me know!
I checked your extension, I appreciate the effort.
When I type it shows the required information, but when I copy paste a character it just shows the code and no other information is displayed. Can you fix that and also is it possible to right click a text on the web page and get its information?
Hey, I can fix that! Just couldn't get to it during holiday season :)
Also, happy new year!
Also, there's another way to quickly show the info about a letter: Select the letter you want to identify and then open the extension (said letter still needs to be selected)
From what it feels like to me, this is even faster than copying and pasting the letter
Based on this thread, I've made an extension that might help you out.
It's pending/getting approved on the web stores (chrome web store and edge insiders web store) right now, so if you want to use it right now, you'll need to do the following:
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1. Download the .crx (zipped extension) from here: https://we.tl/t-J02JGVdbMd
2. Unzip it (using 7zip, for example)
3. In your chrome extensions tab (e.g. chrome://extensions or edge://extensions), enable developer mode and then load the unpacked extension ("load unpacked" > navigate to unzipped extension > select folder)
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I **highly advise against** the latter and for you to wait for the extension to be approved however. I'll post a link to them once they're up and available on the chrome web store here!
Cool! So did you also face this issue or you thought of addressing this need gap after just reading this thread?
I've been looking to create a chrome extension for a while, just to get the hang of it.
Solving this seemed simple enough and yet was something people needed, so I attempted to close that gap!
Congratulations! That is the premise of this platform, I will check your extension and do some tests.
This is super exciting! Thanks. I will wait for it to be available on the chrome web store and try it out.
It's up!
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/letterinfo/lgfiogkobjanmdmafoghaioeomekpmhl
You can enter a letter either by clicking the box in the bottom left hand corner and then typing something,
or by selecting a letter and then opening the extension (with said letter still selected)
This is a fine example of a need gap which may not been addressed considering it as a minor inconvenience, but actually affects large number of people.
This problem is quite often found in websites with codes, especially hash keys or alphanumeric pass codes which needs to be typed manually from websites. This becomes especially cumbersome, when the code needs to be copied correctly in the first attempt & I'm not talking about captchas.
I think a browser add-on which tells whether it is zero or O when highlighted would be simple to implement.
Let's see what others have to say about this need gap.
Yes, a browser add-on which tells whether it is 0 or O when the character is highlighted and the add-on is selected would be great!
Can you provide example websites that you have this problem on?
Not OP, but I've found this as a problem when I work on Linux tty directly and want to patch the kernel by downloading the patch while reading the characters from another screen. There had been some instances when I've wrongly typed 0 for O and vice versa; because the website had some weird font.