HACKER Q&A
📣 birdmachine

Do you care about screenshot blocking? [Warning: Self-Promotion]


Hey Hacker News,

Long time lurker here but just made an account.

I'm running a project and we're at a fork in the road, decision-wise. It occurred to me that y'all are a good representative section of the kinds of people we want to reach. Do you mind if I ask for your opinion? Feel free to delete if this is an inappropriate use of HN.

How much do you personally care about screenshot blocking?

I've been working on a privacy-focused video conf service. Along with our main privacy features, we can achieve basic screenshot prevention if we sandbox calls into our app. But apps are a hassle.

We know that no one can close the analog hole [you can always take a photo of a device screen with a second phone], BUT is raising the barriers (ie: requiring callers to install and use a mobile app to enforce screenshot prevention, vs allowing callers to use any desktop web browser) worth it to you?

I've got an A/B test we've been working on:

https://anonymousinternetphonebooth.com PREVENTS SCREENSHOTS, SANDBOXES CALLS TO APP

https://theinternetphonebooth.com NO SCREENSHOT PREVENTION, JUST PRIVACY-HARDENED VIDEO CALLS IN LAPTOP BROWSER

Here’s our main site, for transparency about who we are: https://birdcalls.is

Could I humbly ask for your most excoriating opinions and critiques?

  👤 Freak_NL Accepted Answer ✓
> But apps are a hassle.

Apps mean your project suddenly requires an Android or IPhone smartphone, where before — if I understand correctly — only a modern browser was required. Is it worth it to limit your project to just smartphones?

As long as the project runs in a desktop browser, screenshots are possible of course, regardless of whatever you do with an app.

Aside from that, it depends on what your audience is. Do you want to sell a service to people who need to tick boxes for the tools they use? Go crazy, introduce pointless features that harm productivity, and ultimately don't solve the problem (even if only the analogue hole remains, but I suspect taking screenshots is possible on most devices), but which allow them to say that they've taken additional measures to prevent leaking.

If you want to provide the tool to people who actually take privacy seriously, a hack like this is just going to make people doubt your technical skills.

👤 hobophysicist
https://anonymousinternetphonebooth.com PREVENTS SCREENSHOTS, SANDBOXES CALLS TO APP

https://theinternetphonebooth.com NO SCREENSHOT PREVENTION, JUST PRIVACY-HARDENED VIDEO CALLS IN LAPTOP BROWSER

Here’s our main site, for transparency about who we are: https://birdcalls.is

👤 devhead
not worth it for me; personally if i want to screenshot something i will, your app won't stop it, as you noted with the inability to block me from taking a picture from another phone. i'm not downloading to confirm if it works, i just would say blocking normal behavior isn't ideal and just adds frustration to users who have a legitimate need to screenshot something; it's like when forms decide to prevent copy and paste, no help.