What is knockoff?

Knockoff is a browser extension that helps Amazon shoppers avoid what the author calls pseudo brands: made up names like SZHLUX or HORUSDY that get registered just to unlock Amazon's seller program, selling ordinary goods with no real company, warranty, or reputation behind them. The extension scans product listings and search results, then hides, dims, or labels the ones it thinks are fake brands, so shoppers can more easily choose from real, established companies, even if that costs a bit more. Everything happens locally in the browser. There are no accounts, no tracking, and no network requests of any kind, since this published version is a frozen snapshot with active development continuing in a private repository. Each product's brand passes through a series of checks in order: first your own personal allow list and block list, then a seed list of known pseudo brands, then a list of established Chinese owned brands, then a much larger list of roughly five thousand known real brands, and finally a set of naming pattern checks that look for things like all capital letters, strange letter combinations, and missing vowels that are common in made up brand names. Users can pick how aggressive the filtering is, from relaxed, to the standard default, to a strict allow list only mode. Flagged items get a small badge that can be clicked to trust the brand, block it, reveal it just once, or flag a wrong call to the maintainers. Product detail pages also show a small verdict label next to the brand name. Because there is no build step, the extension is plain JavaScript that anyone can load directly from the repository folder, and the underlying brand lists can be edited by hand for a personal copy. The project also includes a separate wrapped version for Safari on macOS, built through Xcode. It is aimed at everyday Amazon shoppers who want a simple way to filter out low quality, anonymous sellers, and it has been covered by several tech publications since launch.