Flickr Follower Bot

Bot for Flickr, in .Net Core, using a Chrome client and Selenium for command it
with an easy bot configuration (by default in the FlickrFollowerBot.json)
and an easy task monitoring (readeable logs output and queues are stored in the PersistenceData_USERID.json file that the bot initialize)

Main functions :

• Follow users whose follow you
• Unfollow users whose doesn't follow you and are not tagged as friend or family
• Find contacts in Flickr'Explore
• Can work with a remote Selenium grid and/or in docker

Tags : Flickr, Chrome, Selenium, C#, .Net, Core, bot, robot

Requirement

• Windows, Linux or Mac
• .Net Core SDK 3.1 : https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/3.1
• Chrome (not Chromium), or a Selenium server with Chrome clients

Usage

DotNet run

Download the sources and run donet sdk command in the folder of your Windows, Linux or Mac.

• Run with default (after having added BotUserEmail and BotUserPassword in the FlickrFollowerBot.json) :

dotnet run

• Follow back users whose follow you in a permanent loop :

dotnet run BotTasks=DetectContactsFollowBack,DoContactsFollow,Wait,Loop BotUserEmail=you@dom.com BotUserPassword=Passw0rd

• On a daily base, find users in today Explore, fav theirs pictures then follow them :

dotnet run BotTasks=DetectExplored,DoPhotosFav,DoContactsFollow BotUserEmail=you@dom.com BotUserPassword=Passw0rd

• On a daily base, unfollow users whose doesn't follow you :

dotnet run BotTasks=DetectContactsUnfollowBack,DoContactsUnfollow BotUserEmail=you@dom.com BotUserPassword=Passw0rd

• Follow and fav photo of a specific user :

dotnet run BotUserEmail=you@dom.com BotUserPassword=Passw0rd AddContactsToFollow=https://www.flickr.com/photos/jc173/ AddContactsToFav=https://www.flickr.com/photos/jc173/ BotTasks=DoContactsFollow,DoContactsFav

• On a daily base, fav photos of users that you already follow :

dotnet run BotTasks=DetectRecentContactPhotos,DoPhotosFav BotUserEmail=you@dom.com BotUserPassword=Passw0rd

• On a daily base, search keywords and follow+fav of users in the search resulf :

dotnet run BotSearchKeywords="Paris,France" BotTasks=SearchKeywords,DoContactsFollow,DoPhotosFav BotUserEmail=you@dom.com BotUserPassword=Passw0rd

• Using a remote selenium hub and use windows environnement varaible this time:

SET SeleniumRemoteServer=http://seleniumhubhostname:4444/wd/hub
SET BotUserEmail=you@dom.com
SET BotUserPassword=Passw0rd
dotnet run

Docker run

• Build and Run default BotTasks with Docker with a remote Selenium Hub (here another docker) : Exemple with Z:\FlickrFollowerBot as the source path, on a Windows system using the environnement variable (SET)

SET BotUserEmail=you@dom.com
SET BotUserPassword=Passw0rd
SET SeleniumRemoteServer=http://seleniumhost:4444/wd/hub
docker build -f Z:\FlickrFollowerBot\Dockerfile -t flickrfollowerbot Z:\FlickrFollowerBot
docker run --name seleniumContainer --detach --publish 4444:4444 selenium/standalone-chrome --volume /dev/shm:/dev/shm 
docker run --link seleniumContainer:seleniumhost flickrfollowerbot   

Docker Compose run

• Build and Run default BotTasks with Docker and an standalone Selenium

Exemple with BotUserEmail&BotUserPassword provided in the FlickrFollowerBot.json or in the host "environment"

docker-compose up

Configuration

Main settings

Settings may be read in command line parameter, else in environnement variable (SET on Windows, EXPORT on linux), else directly put in the FlickrFollowerBot.json.
Only BotUserEmail and BotUserPassword won't have default working values from the initial configuration file.
BotUserPassword may be set to null in debug mode (the user will be able to insert the password himself)

Parameter	Description
BotUserEmail	Email for auto-login and filename of the session file
BotUserPassword	Password for auto-login, may be set to null if session file already created
BotUsePersistence	Will create a file for the user session information (cookies, queue to do) named "PersistenceData_USERID.json" (Yes by default)
BotUserSaveFolder	Where is stored user session file (Current folder by default), it this value is set, the file won't have the PersistenceData_ prefix and will be just named USERID.json.
SeleniumRemoteServer	Url of the Selenium Hub web service (Not used by default : Use local Chrome by default)
BotTasks	Tasks to do, separatedd by a comma
AddPhotosToFav	Add theses direct photos link in the queue of DoPhotosFav task, multiple separated with a comma, format : https://www.flickr.com/photos/{USERID}/{PHOTOID}
AddContactsToFav	Add theses users photos link in the queue of DoContactsFav task, multiple separated with a comma, format : https://www.flickr.com/photos/{USERID}/
AddContactsToFollow	Add theses users photos link in the queue of DoContactsFollow task, multiple separated with a comma, format : https://www.flickr.com/photos/{USERID}/
AddContactsToUnFollow	Add theses users photos link in the queue of DoContactsUnfollow task, multiple separated with a comma, format : https://www.flickr.com/photos/{USERID}/

Availeable Taks

Task names are case insensitive.
A lot of settings, in order to randomize or limit the batch, are stored in the FlickrFollowerBot.Json with "BotXXXXX" settings.
All queues to do are stored in the user session file, so you can remove this user file if you want to clean the tasks queues.

Name	Description
DetectContactsFollowBack	Push contacts for DoContactsFollow and DoContactsFav tasks queue
DetectContactsUnfollowBack	Push contacts for DoContactsUnfollow task queue
DetectExplored	Push contacts for DoContactsFollow and DoContactsFav tasks queue and push photos to DoPhotosFav task queue
SearchKeywords	Search BotSearchKeywords and find contacts for DoContactsFollow, DoContactsFav and push photos to DoPhotosFav task queue
DetectRecentContactPhotos	Push photos for DoPhotosFav task queue
DoContactsUnfollow	Pop elements that DetectContactsUnfollowBack have send to this queue
DoContactsFollow	Pop elements that others tasks have send to this queue
DoContactsFav	Pop user photos elements that others tasks have send to this queue and Fav multiple pictures of this user (between BotFavPictsPerContactMin and BotFavPictsPerContactMax)
DoPhotosFav	Pop photo elements that others tasks have send to this queue and fav the picture
**Save	Update the user session file (USERID.json file, stored in the BotUserSaveFolder)
Wait	Pause the worker between BotWaitTaskMinWaitMs and BotWaitTaskMaxWaitMs milliseconds
Loop	Restart from BeginLoop task else first task

Notes

• Selenium Chrome Driver must have the same version than your Chrome (change the lib version in the project if required)
• Flickr Web Api isn't used because doesn't allow main actions
• Don't be evil, else Flick will delete your spamming account
• The solution is micro-service oriented, but Flickr will detected the spamming account if the bot is too fast
• If you want to publish without remote Selenium, add _PUBLISH_CHROMEDRIVER in the DefineConstants of the .csproj

TODO :

• Unfav all
• Exception list for unfollow
• Explore : target a number of result instead of a number of scrool
• Smarter fav : detect already faved pict without going to the pict
• In some case, fix the Content Security Policy issue on some retail/headless mode first auth
• Resume when Chrome crash ?
• Detect when Flick move the bot to the message interface