Just Let It Flow

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As pointed out in the comments, MatchAffinity have redesigned their site. The things described here no longer work as is. I’m looking into it

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Contents:

• Intro
• Prerequisites
•   Installing Mozilla Firefox
•   Installing Greasemonkey
• MatchAffinity
•   Viewing Unscrambled Photos
•   Automatically Revealing Their Profile Photos
•   Viewing the profile of those who favourite You
•   Automatically Revealing Their Profile Photos, Using User Names
• Outro

Intro

We’ve all had a profile on a dating site, answered the truly nonsensical personality questions and then took a browse around at the talent on offer. The flakiest and cheapest of us stop there. The realisation that it’ll take an arm and a doughnut to see the faces of prospective partners, benefitial friends, or good time men/women is just too much.

MatchAffinity tries to buck the trend by giving you a small three inch window into their world. Unfortunately, it seems to be a frosted bathroom window and all you can make out is the colours, and the occassional red headed person. Until now that is…

Prerequisites

Before getting to the juicy bit, there are a few quick things that need to be done.

Th video below shows how to install both prerequisites. After this, you can skip directly to The Juicy Bits. If you’d rather follow written steps, see under the video.

Installing Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is an alternative browser to Internet Explorer that allows for easy customisation, which is what we’ll be using. It’s quite popular, so chances are you already have it. If you do, skip to prerequisite 2 below. If not:

1. Right click on –> Mozilla Firefox <– and click on ‘Open In New Window’.
2. Click the ‘Download Now’ button and select ‘Open’
3. Wait for it to download
4. When the installer starts, keep clicking next until it starts installing
5. Leave the ‘Launch…’ box ticked and click ‘Finish’

Installing Greasemonkey

Despite a name likening it to a dodgy mechanic, greasemonkey is the key bit of magic that makes this all so easy. To install it:

1. Run Firefox and goto Tools->Add-ons
2. In the new window, at the far right, click in the box that says “Search all add-ons” to remove the text. Type in “greasemonkey” and press enter/return
3. After a few seconds, the first result in the space below should be “Greasemonkey. A User Script Manager for Firefox”. Again, at the far right, click Install and wait for the green bar to fill all the way
4. You’re now prompted to restart Firefox. Do so using the green text, and you’re done

That’s the hors d’oeuvres out of the way, let’s get to the main meal.

MatchAffinity

Viewing Unscrambled Pictures

You need to have done the two previous by now, otherwise you’ll just be wasting time.

1. Navigate to this very page using Firefox, (that’s “http://blog.airesoft.co.uk/2011/11/monkeying-with-matchaffinity/” without the quotes if you need to copy and paste it)
2. Click –>MatchAffinity photo show-er<–, this should bring up a warning dialog from Greasemonkey. Click install after the brief countdown
3. Still using Firefox, go to http://www.matchaffinity.com and log in as usual
4. Ta-da! All the main profile pictures, the little accompanying photos and the top selected match on your homepage should now be visible

Demo video of the above steps:

Any pictures that have a blue outline can be clicked on to view the full picture the person uploaded. This will remain so as long as you keep using Firefox to visit Matchaffinity or otherwise remove Greasemonkey or the script.

Automatically Revealing Their Profile Photos

This mtehod can also be done in Internet Explorer and any other browser, though you won’t get the good pictures. It looks long but after the first couple of times it takes only a few seconds.

1. Click the Home link on MatchAffinities top bar
2. Right-click on the ‘Photos Revealed’ panel, and select ‘Open Link in New Tab’
3. If the display changes to the new tab, switch back. We don’t need it yet
4. Go to the user of interest’s profile page, this is a URL like http://www.matchaffinity.com/members/index.php?ref=MVIEW.2.xxxxxxxxx where x is any number
5. Modify the URL so that it reads (changes in red) http://www.matchaffinity.com/members/photos.php?aref=xxxxxxxxx and press enter
6. Switch to the browser tab that contains your “I can view their photos” page
7. Wait 5 seconds and refresh the page, the name of the user should appear at the top of the list
8. Go back to the tab containing the profile and refresh that.

Ta-da. If, after doing this, the user’s profile picture stays as the default, then they have not uploaded any photos or they’ve not been approved yet.

Demo video of the above steps:

Viewing the Profile of Those Who Favourite You

Note, this method requires that the “I want to be notified when someone adds me to their favourites” is set in your account preferences (My Account Details->My Account)

This can also be done in other web browsers.

1. In the email you receive when you’ve been favourited, take a note of the user name of who favourited you
2. Log in to matchaffinity.com if you aren’t already
3. In the address bar that contains the URL, type in/copy/etc “http://www.matchaffinity.com/members/index.php?pseudo=” (no quotes, but do include the equals). and add the user name you noted from the email onto the end and press enter.

Ta-da, this is the persons profile. it’s even easier to reveal their photos from here.

Demo video of the above steps:

Automatically revealing their profile photos, using user names

The method is the same as the user id version above. The only difference is in the URL change.

4. Modify the URL so that it reads (changes in red) http://www.matchaffinity.com/members/photos.php?pseudo=xxxx and press enter (where xxxx is the user name)

Continue with the other steps after that as per the previous set of instructions.

Demo video of the whole process:

Outro

It doesn’t get you all the way, but it makes MatchAffinity a more than fair service. Especially since you get some free messages too. If you send your email address along, I’m sure the other person will respond if they find you suitable lovely, which I know they will.

Since I know someone will ask, no, I don’t know of a way to allow you to have unlimited messaging or other pay-for perks beyond what’s listed here. Fiddling with the contact URL doesn’t provide anything fruitful.

And as always, it’s a level playing field. Anybody can use this information the same way you can, and see your pictures even if you don’t want them to. The only way to block against it is not to upload your pictures in the first place, or to delete your Match Affinity profile. And I wouldn’t recommend the latter, that personality test is a bitch to do again.

Have fun with your new frosted-glass-puncturing spyglass.