ive been building PCs for a decade and honestly, tracking prices without an account is getting harder. last year, trying to find a Legion deal for my own setup was a nightmare...

• Distill Web Monitor: Browser extension so no registration, but its a pain to configure.
• Keepa: Gold standard once, but unfortunately theyve restricted features behind logins lately. everything feels like a downgrade lately tho.

> im honestly so fed up with these sites forcing me to sign up just to track a price. Seriously, i have been hunting for a solution to this exact problem for years and it just gets worse every season. Every single time i find a tool that looks promising, they hit you with a login wall the second you try to set an actual notification. Its like, i just want to save a few hundred bucks on my tech gear without handing over my entire digital identity to some random database that will probably get leaked anyway. I honestly feel your pain so much. Ive spent hours digging through forums trying to find a workaround for my own builds because i refuse to manage fifty different accounts just for price alerts. I even tried this Chrome extension thinking it might be the holy grail, but nope, still ran into the same registration nonsense eventually. It is just beyond frustrating that there is no straightforward way to do this anymore without the spam.

My buddy told me the exact same thing last week. Guess he was right lol.

Re: "My buddy told me the exact same thing..." - its a recurring issue for those of us who prioritize performance and privacy. Ive been quite happy with local tracking lately because it bypasses the lag and data harvesting of third-party sites. When you need a specific deal like that Legion, you need speed.

• Distill Web Monitor: This is my preferred choice for raw performance. Since it runs in your browser, the check intervals can be aggressive without needing a login, tho you need to keep the tab active.
• RSS Polling: Using a simple feed reader works well for broader sales. Its methodical and keeps your inbox clean, but the latency is higher than a local scraper. Basically, I find the local scraper works well for those time-sensitive drops. It keeps things private and puts you in control of the update frequency... which is really the only way to beat the bots these days.

Building on the earlier suggestion, I actually have a bit of a different take on this because relying strictly on local browser tools for a time-sensitive birthday gift is kinda risky. I tried that route when I was hunting for the parts in my current setup and it was a mess. I had this script running locally to avoid signing up for stuff, but my desktop decided to run a random update and rebooted right when the price bottomed out. By the time I got back online, the stock was gone. You really have to be careful with local-only stuff because if your pc sleeps or the site detects too many pings from one IP, you're toast. I would suggest making sure your power settings are perfect, otherwise you might just miss the window entirely while trying to stay off the grid.

ngl i saw this earlier and just had to chime in because the struggle is real... spent my whole weekend trying to get a tracker working for a new monitor and the compatibility issues almost broke me. im usually pretty satisfied once things are running but getting there is such a headache.

• browser extensions: i love using these on my laptop but they just wont talk to my phone. no cross-device compatibility at all unless you cave and make an account.
• local scripts: i was really satisfied with my setup until the website changed its code. then the script just stopped being compatible with the store page and i missed the sale.
• rss feeds: these are great when they work but so many sites have killed them off lately. its just such a mess trying to stay private while also wanting stuff to actually work across all my devices tho.

Same here!

Late to the party but this whole thread is 💯. Glad I found it.

Been using this for years, no complaints