I'm sorry for posting in English.

I'm VixinG, creator of the extension you're talking about.

I shouldn't be even responding here, but I feel like you guys are talking about me and I'm confused.
For the past 7 months I get a lot of messages daily/weekly about this extension. Many people thanking me / asking me questions.

I'm using the method implemented in the extension since early 2015, and I was always buffering on Twitch.
I'm from Poland. My ISP is Orange ADSL. I can watch max 3 minutes on Source before it breaks.

A few days ago I noticed that 3 or 4 servers are not working and other servers are not being as good as they used to.
I am using the extension myself, so I decided to update it. While I was working on an update I found a video of a popular French streamer who was advertising my extension, hosting it on mediafire, giving me no credit (he even said "I don't even know who made it"). This lack of credit made me add the info on the extension popup, along with twitch and twitter links, just so I can help people in other way.

(avec un bon gros bouton 'donate' donc il cherche a se faire un peu d'argent  )

It's not big.. it's a normal size link
It's really optional. There are no ads or anything blocking you. You have to realize I'm not a programmer. I'm also unemployed but it's totally fine, I don't look for money.
Otherwise I wouldn't be making this extension in the first place. I even posted it's source on Github.
I have an idea to make this extension "legal" and allowed by Twitch, but it costs money which I don't have. It requires a server with multiple proxies/vpns to handle requests and redirect people just like this extension, but it's safe to Twitch.

I'm sorry I couldn't do more, but I had to take it down from Chrome Web Store.
I didn't want to risk anything by disobeying Twitch request.
I didn't know 30000 people are going to download it from other place, but when I found out I tried updating it. That's why I published it again for a very short time, just so people get the update.

D’ailleurs, je corrige. Vixing n'est pas de San Francisco... mais de Pologne!
Il ne sait même pas mettre un serveur UE par défaut pour lui.^^

Not always the closest server to you has the best connection! I buffer on every European server except London, but US-1 was the best 7 months ago, so I set it to default. Now Level3 and Dallas are the best.

Do you have any questions? I don't know how to help you. I know how Twitch works, how their servers work. That's why I made this extension.

Again, sorry for posting in English. I don't know French.

Thanks a lot for this extension, now the live is not buffering anymore.
I can switch off VPN. Thanks again.

Hi VixinG, welcome here.

It's not big.. it's a normal size link
It's really optional. There are no ads or anything blocking you. You have to realize I'm not a programmer. I'm also unemployed but it's totally fine, I don't look for money.

I have no issue with the donate button, I was just surprised by it because it wasn't in the previous version so I was wondering what the intent was. Now I understand.

Also I was a bit annoyed by you for not mentioning my PR (pull request) on github. It's fine but you didn't even reply to it before closing it (and apparently merging some code from it) as it is customary to do in github (it's basic 'consideration' & courtesy between programmers).
Seen that you're not a programmer I understand now, so that's fine too.
Anyway, no point making a drama about 3 lines of code.

I also wrote to you on Reddit about the legal aspect of it. As I understand it now, it's not Google that removed it but you and only because Twitch asked you to do so the very first time. Thanks for clarifying that. I think your extension if legally ok , it's just about 'agreeing or not' to Twitch's request, which is your own decision.

I have an idea to make this extension "legal" and allowed by Twitch, but it costs money which I don't have. It requires a server with multiple proxies/vpns to handle requests and redirect people just like this extension, but it's safe to Twitch.

We have posted in the french part of this topic a way to do so using cheap proxy servers (<4€/month) and a Chrome proxy extension that redirects only Twitch traffic to them (for instance: Proxy SwitchyOmega).
Some people here are willing to share freely their proxy so feel free to ask them access (but only for Twitch access ofc).

Unless you really want to make a business of this new 'project', of course, then that's another story.

To be complete, I think the best approach to 'please' everyone (=Twitch mainly) would be to do a generic version of your extension with no mention of 'Twitch' and without pre-including any Twitch servers in it.
It's the user, in the extension options  page that would then configure manually it for Twitch or any other online web service for that matter...

It's very easy to code actually:

just remove everything related to Twich in your extension (even the name) and put these in variables that the user will fill in in the option page of the extension.

For exemple, the user will have to enter

url =  "(http[s]?):\/\/vid.*\.hls\.ttvnw\.net\/(.*\.ts)$"
replacement =  "$1//video20.fra01.hls.ttvnw.net/$2"

Actually such an extension probably already exists ...(for exemple Requestly but I haven't tried to redirect Twich streams with it).

When you're talking about "legal", I guess you are meaning "accepted by Twitch" rather than any consideration related to law? Albeit I don't have particular knowledge in Polish law, I'm pretty sure that changing a DOM localStorage value having an indirect impact on the routing of your traffic wouldn't have a reason to be forbidden in any close jurisdiction.

Yes, I meant accepted by Twitch. I already talked to the Product Manager of Video at Twitch several months ago about it. Just before he asked me to take my extension down, and I did.

This could for sure importune them a bit in their seeking to manage and control their network interconnections, in the case the extension would undergo massive adoption, so in this case the request would seem reasonable anyway.

To my knowledge they didn't do anything that would improve our user experience when it comes to the routing/buffering problem. It is just as it was in 2014 and there haven't been any signals from their side promising a change. From what I've seen they are working on Whispers, Friends list and Stream Feed.

The idea I presented to them was me hosting a server running multiple proxies or VPNs from different places around the world which would query their stream API, getting a list of available servers for a specified channel.
Users would open streams and the extension would gather info, send it to the server which would generate a list of servers available for this channel.

So basically:
User opens Twitch stream. Extension sends the channel name to the Server. Server queries local database for the channel. If not found, Server queries Twitch API from US, EU, SA, Asia, AU simultaneously and saves results in local database. Extension tries again, Server finds a match, responds with a list of servers to the Extension.

That's the safest way without breaking Twitch servers. My extension is potentially disruptive, because if 30k people drops on the same server, eg. video20.Fra01, it will either shut down (but I guess/hope they have security measures for that) or lag other users on that server/node.

I asked them 7 months ago if they could add a server switch option on the new html5 player they introduced a while ago, with a drop down list of servers that are available for the currently watched streamer. They said it's too complicated but they are "constantly working" on improving blah blah

Doing that would mean doing Twitch (or ISPs) job basically, that hardly seems like something you should be doing.

If I didn't do it, I'd buffer 24/7. And you. And 30k other people. As much as I like Chatty and Livestreamer, I prefer having an actual working website and this extension actually made that happen
/edit: unless you mean the idea I'm proposing.. yeah, but do you expect Twitch to do something like that? I don't :/

Also I was a bit annoyed by you for not mentioning my PR (pull request) on github. It's fine but you didn't even reply to it before closing it (and apparently merging some code from it) as it is customary to do in github (it's basic 'consideration' & courtesy between programmers).

I didn't know what was that pull request about. You titled it "DE is now 14 not 7" or something like that. Sorry for that, I'm not a programmer unless I really want to do something useful (like this extension).
I also did something terrible and had to remove my branch and all history and reupload just the final 1.1.0. I'm a git newbie.

To be complete, I think the best approach to 'please' everyone (=Twitch mainly) would be to do a generic version of your extension with no mention of 'Twitch' and without pre-including any Twitch servers in it.
It's the user, in the extension options  page that would then configure manually it for Twitch or any other online web service for that matter...

Yep, I was thinking about making it like this, but it was just simpler to update the server list, add storage save and add my contact info (Twitter, twitch) and donation link in case I want to start the proxy extension.
I can spend some time and make an extension like that, or replace this one entirely and change name and everything.

Sure and that's nice of you but I think it is not realistic to think that you can provide a server for 30k (and maybe more) users. That would be both technically complex and expensive, that's why I say it's doing Twitch and ISP jobs.

You are right.
I can't even suggest such a thing to my ISP. I have Orange ADSL, I don't know what's French experience with Orange, but here we don't have much to say about peering or routing.
I suggested this a few times to Twitch and heard the same response over and over.