It shows two illustrations of embeds for Micro.blog websites: a map view with a Google Maps icon and a video player window with a YouTube logo.

Since I merged my Mastodon presence with my Wordpress blog and moved everything to Micro.blog, I’ve not only found myself blogging more regularly again, I’ve also started contributing back to the Micro.blog community wherever I can.

With a bit of help from ChatGPT, I created three small plugins that solve problems I encountered while writing and customizing my own blog. Here’s a quick rundown:

Privacy-friendly YouTube embeds

mbplugin-youtube-nocookie lets you embed YouTube videos in a more privacy-conscious way. Instead of loading the full YouTube iframe immediately, it displays the video thumbnail with a CSS-based play button overlay. Clicking it loads the actual video. An optional privacy notice can also be shown. It’s a fork of fmaida’s plugin, with a few privacy, usability and styling tweaks.

Better and privacy-friendly Google Maps embeds

I often want to include maps in my posts, to show where a photo was taken or to point readers to a specific place. But the default embed options of Google Maps are clunky and also not very privacy-friendly. mbplugin-maps solves this by using the Google Maps Static API to generate a preview image. After a click, the full map loads. It supports both address-based and coordinate-based locations. The static map API is free for up to 100,000 views per month, which should be enough for most private websites.

Lightweight, privacy-friendly web analytics with GoatCounter

mbplugin-goatcounter adds basic web analytics to Micro.blog sites using GoatCounter. It uses a tracking pixel that is served with your own vanity domain, optionally enhanced by a bit of inline JavaScript to collect referrer data, all without cookies, third-party scripts or any connections to other websites. Although I now host my own Plausible instance, GoatCounter was a great way to experiment with minimal, privacy-first web analytics and hopefully helps people that just want to have basic and free web analytics.

All plugins are open source and can be found on my Github profile. You are welcome to use, adapt, or contribute. If you’re also customizing Micro.blog or building plugins, I’d love to hear about your experience!