Kobo store price comparisons

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by fotonmoton

Any suggestions are welcome, please test it and say what you think. Also, what to highlight that this "lifehack" will not survive for long. I think it was possible to do the same steps with Amazon, to get lowest price from different stores. But after sometime they make it nearly impossible to change your billing address to bypass their price inequality.

FWIW I’ve always got the feeling from their DRM scheme to their store that Kobo puts as little effort as possible to keep their publishers happy. So fingers crossed their use of Cloudflare only accidentally makes scraping more complicated.

We will see. In the meantime I’m happy to use this tool to keep buying from Kobo instead of well, “finding” the books.

[Quoth]

Cloudfare is the problem, not Kobo.

[fotonmoton]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

FWIW I’ve always got the feeling from their DRM scheme to their store that Kobo puts as little effort as possible to keep their publishers happy. So fingers crossed their use of Cloudflare only accidentally makes scraping more complicated.

We will see. In the meantime I’m happy to use this tool to keep buying from Kobo instead of well, “finding” the books.

Maybe you are right, we will see. Do you know another book stores where you can easily change billing country to buy book cheaper? It would be cool to compare prices between different stores.

[fotonmoton]

Forget to put sources in the post. Here's repository if you're interested how it works or want to submit changes:

https://github.com/fotonmoton/koboprice

[fotonmoton]

Didn't know but Kobo has Price Match Guarantee. In theory, at first, you can find lowest price on Kobo and then at different store. Submit form and save even more

[fotonmoton]

Good news Firefox users - addon has been approved and you can install it. So the easiest way right now to run the script is to add Firefox/Chrome extension.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/and...on/kobo-price/

[fotonmoton]

changed path for userscript, you can find it here:
https://github.com/fotonmoton/kobopr...oprice.user.js

[fotonmoton]

Screencast from 2024-07-17 18-18-08 (trimmed).avi


Some script updates:
- don't check book in your library
- show progress
- update prices in realtime

I think it's completed and done. As always, you can:
- use userscript (already updated)
- install Firefox add-on (attaching new version kobo_price-1.2.0.xpi, public listing is still in the review. In the couple of days will available here)
- install Chrome extension. Also will be updated in the couple of days.

[fotonmoton]

Version 1.2.1:
- userscript
- Firefox add-on kobo_price-1.2.1.xpi or check 1.2.1 version in store
- Google Chrome - check for 1.2.1 version in the future

- fixed conversion for TRY and MXN currencies

[PeterT]

I tried the chrome version on a Chromebook yesterday in Canada. No go at all. When I was on the Kobo site looking at a book I saw a box above the regular Kobo book info that just said Loading and never progressed beyond that.

Sent from my Pixel 7a using Tapatalk

[fotonmoton]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I tried the chrome version on a Chromebook yesterday in Canada. No go at all. When I was on the Kobo site looking at a book I saw a box above the regular Kobo book info that just said Loading and never progressed beyond that.

Sent from my Pixel 7a using Tapatalk

Hi, Peter. Could you please open developer tools, go to console tab and put "KOBOPRICE" in the filter? Then reload page and make screenshot of what you get. In the meantime you can try to use the script with violentmonkey + userscript from github. Try to follow instructions above.

[chrisridd]

It works! It is pretty slow though (like my original script ) - is there any way to fetch other prices in parallel?

It'd also be nice to set the desired currency. Though it doesn't really matter too much to be honest as the cheapest one is still the cheapest in a different currency.

[DNSB]

Doesn't work for me when I am signed in to my account that has Kobo Plus. The screenshot is after 15 minutes. If I sign out, I get results but takes way too long to return any results (~ 7 minutes). I also tried a dummy account created when I set up a Kobo Clara 2E and took the same test of patience time to return any results.

[fotonmoton]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

It works! It is pretty slow though (like my original script ) - is there any way to fetch other prices in parallel?

It'd also be nice to set the desired currency. Though it doesn't really matter too much to be honest as the cheapest one is still the cheapest in a different currency.

Last version shows you the progress so even if it slow you can visually check where you are.


I thought about ability to set different currencies but, as you said, you just look at usd and be sure that it will be cheapest in your currency as well. Are you using userscript method or you also installed extension for chrome?

[fotonmoton]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Doesn't work for me when I am signed in to my account that has Kobo Plus. The screenshot is after 15 minutes. If I sign out, I get results but takes way too long to return any results (~ 7 minutes). I also tried a dummy account created when I set up a Kobo Clara 2E and took the same test of patience time to return any results.

Are you using chrome extension? Regarding speed: I intensionally fetch prices not in parallel. I experimented with parallel fetching and triggered anti DOS protection. This is why I try to simulate simple opening tabs one by one.

But 7 minutes it's too long. Some books do not have prices for all countries and in that case I need to wait from 10s timeout before giving up on particular country. Maybe you encounter such book.

Don't have the Kobo Plus, maybe there is different page layout for it. I'll update script tomorrow not to depend on page layout and show it in the right corner of the screen.