2026-06-26 · Morgan Ellis · 853 words
Affiliate extensions we refuse
Cloaking extensions we refuse. Product can load unpacked extensions. That is not permission to cloak. This commercial page draws the line. Authorized work only.
MaskWright can load an unpacked extension into one Chromium profile. That is a product fact. It is not permission to cloak an affiliate link, swap a landing page for a crawler, or hide the destination from the person who clicked. This commercial page draws that line.
I write for stores and programs you already have a right to run. A dashboard you log into. A network that paid you last month. A research tab that looks at public offers. Cloaking is a different job, and we skip it.
What the product actually loads
On Chromium, an unpacked extension lives under the profile directory, gets copied to a staging folder, and launches with --load-extension. Built-in spoof and proxy-auth pieces load the same way. A password manager or a shipping add-on that belongs to Store A should not appear in Store B.
That is isolation. Ecommerce accounts on one PC is the split. Affiliate dashboard isolation keeps Network A out of Network B's cookies. Supplier portals versus retail admin is the same split for a store that buys and sells.
An extension inherits the cookies it sits in. If you load a cloaking tool into the dashboard profile, the tool can see the login. If you load it into a research profile, you are still running a tool whose job is to lie to a visitor or a bot. I will not document that load.
Cloaking is not research
Affiliate research is looking at a public offer page, a disclosure, a landing page the network already shows. Affiliate research rooms stay cold. No dashboard cookie. No self-click. Affiliate self-clicks are fraud.
Cloaking is showing Googlebot one page and a person another, or showing a network's compliance view a clean page and the clicker a bait page. That is not a fingerprint problem. It is not a proxy problem. It is a lie about the destination.
I will not write a "safe cloaking" setup. I will not name the extensions that do it. I will not treat a coherent user agent as cover for a swapped landing page.
Antidetect notes for Amazon on this blog are a category answer for authorized Seller work, then a pointer to entity hygiene. They are not a cloak for Amazon's rules. Listing isolation on other marketplaces is the same ethic: profiles you already operate, not a disguise for a listing you are not allowed to run.
| Extension type | Belongs in a store profile | I will document |
|---|---|---|
| Password manager for that store only | Yes | Isolation, not a how-to for cloaking |
| Shipping helper for a store you run | Yes | Keep it in that folder |
| Cloaker / "safe page" switcher | No | No |
| Self-click or coupon injector | No | No |
Money tabs stay in the entity
PayPal business versus personal rooms is the wallet split for one entity. A cloaking extension that also "protects" a payment tab is still a cloaking extension. Payment and tax surfaces stay in the entity profile. They do not need a redirect toy.
If a network forbids a given redirect pattern, a local profile does not create a new permission. Official link formats, official tracking parameters, and the network's own compliance tools are the door.
What I will load, and what I will not bless
I will talk about unpacked extensions that belong to the work: a shipping helper for a store you run, a password manager in that store's profile only, a locale tool you understand. Those still stay in one folder. They do not roam.
I will not bless cloakers and "safe page" switchers, click-fraud helpers and self-click automators, coupon injectors that rewrite someone else's checkout, or tools that hide the real URL from the person or the crawler.
We will not hide a scraper is the collection sibling. This page is the affiliate sibling.
MaskWright 0.1 has no affiliate network integration. It does not rewrite links. It does not sit in the click path. Optional ads live in dashboard chrome we draw, not inside launched store tabs. That is a different product fact, and it is not a cloaking stack.
If a network reviewer asks how a click reaches the offer, you should be able to draw the path without a switch. Official tracking parameters. A landing page the visitor also sees. A disclosure the program already requires. An unpacked cloaker in the dashboard profile fails that drawing. Remove it.
The Ecommerce hub has the rest of the store splits. This page is only the extension line: the loader exists so a profile can carry the add-ons that belong to it. It does not exist so you can lie about a landing page.
FAQ
The product loads extensions. Why not cloakers?
Loading is a mechanism. Permission is a different question. We load add-ons that belong to a store you run. We will not document add-ons whose job is to hide a destination.
Can I keep research and dashboard extensions in one profile?
No. Research stays cold. Dashboard add-ons stay in the dashboard profile. Mixing them is how a cloaker sees a login.
Related notes
- PayPal business versus personal roomsEcommerce
- Affiliate research roomsEcommerce
- Antidetect browsers for AmazonEcommerce
- Affiliate self-clicks are fraudEcommerce
- Ecommerce accounts on one PCEcommerce
- Affiliate dashboard isolationEcommerce
- Supplier portals versus retail adminEcommerce
- Airbnb listing isolation for authorized hostsEcommerce