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A non-intrusive QR code paste & decode Firefox add-on

How does it work ?
Once the add-on is installed, a new icon appears in Firefox toolbar. To decode a QR code :
- Copy an image containing a QR code
- Click on the icon to open the add-on pop-up
- Paste the image

Why a QR code scanner on my computer ? I have a phone that makes the job 🤔
That's a fair point. But regularly, it happens that I need to scan a QR code on my computer screen : it can be a QR code displayed as part of a web conference, a Swiss QR-bill, a COVID digital certificate (... well, okay, the use case isn't obvious here), a two-steps authentication setup, or simply a QR-code found over the internet.

In that case, here are the choices :

• scan from a phone and send the result to the computer. That's slow and not handy, I need the phone, and it sounds silly to scan my computer screen to send the result to this same computer.
• use a desktop application. But frankly, there are not that many, at least on GNU/Linux, they require many permissions that I am reluctant to grant for just decoding a QR code (network access ??), are sometimes heavy (my previous one was a 34 Mb Flatpak) and buggy...
• use an existing Firefox add-on. That's a lighter solution, but again, according to their permissions, they could be quite intrusive... And they often read QR codes through webcam, which is usually not what I need.
• code my own solution, simpler, working standalone and without any permission, and covering only the use case I mentioned above : scanning from images. So here comes QR 2 Text 🙂 Less than 76 Kb i.e. 400 times smaller than my previous app, doing what I need without spreading anything over the internet or activating my webcam !

What permissions are needed ?
None, QR 2 Text is as non-intrusive as possible.

Does QR 2 Text collect my data ?
No, and it will never do.

Tags: anti tracker privacy security