Snap Shots (revisited)

I wrote earlier about adding Snap Shots to Mac 5. It will enhance any external link by giving you a small preview of the destination web page. I think it is most useful when it defines a word or phrase using Wikipedia. But it can also be neat to see a preview.

Recently, Snap Shots started doing something I considered invasive. It scanned for phrases it our posts and decided to attach links to them. I could also see that ads now appear under the Snap Shot previews, so this was about making money (fine) by randomly picking out key phrases in our posts (not fine.) I noticed it when posting the witness I gave at Dad's funeral. I sure didn't want to be randomly selling things in a eulogy!

Turns out, I can create an account and control that new phrase-link option. I turned it off. I turned on charitable contributions so that a portion of the ad proceeds will go to the International Red Cross.

So I'm still sold on Snap Shots.