Chrome extension

Privacy Policy

Decode This Website · Effective date: 13 August 2026

Limited Use: browsing data is handled only to provide the user-requested technology detection feature. Decode This Website does not sell it, use it for advertising or profiling, or use it for an unrelated purpose.

What this extension does

Decode This Website helps you inspect the technologies used by the page in your active browser tab. It handles browser and page data only after you explicitly click Analyze tab. It does not run an always-on content script, monitor your browsing in the background, or collect a browsing history.

Data we handle

URL mode
The current tab URL, page title, and tab ID are sent to the operator's Gateway so the detection engines can analyze the page.
Evidence mode
If you enable Include page evidence, the extension also reads bounded page evidence: up to 200,000 characters of HTML, 20,000 characters of visible text, 100 script URLs, 20 inline script bodies of up to 50,000 characters each, 40 meta entries, and a fixed allowlist of JavaScript properties. These limits are designed to prevent unbounded collection.
What the extension does not read
The extension does not collect cookies, browser storage, passwords, form entries, or page request headers. It does not request access to your browsing history.
Local session state
chrome.storage.session stores the current scan status and result so the popup can recover its display while the browser session is open. This data is not synced across devices and is cleared by Chrome when the session ends.

How data is used and shared

The Gateway passes the requested URL to the technology detection engines, which may make HTTP requests to the website being analyzed. Their purpose is to return technologies, versions, confidence values, and evidence for the result shown to you.

If you enable Use AI to verify results, the Gateway may send the analyzed URL and normalized technology results to Cloudflare AI (openai/gpt-5-nano) for an optional assessment. AI is disabled unless you explicitly enable it. The page evidence collected by the extension is not used as an AI prompt by the Gateway.

We do not sell, rent, or share this data for advertising, behavioral profiling, or any purpose unrelated to the user-facing detection feature. The extension has no advertising SDK, analytics SDK, account system, or newsletter integration.

Storage and retention

When PostgreSQL storage is enabled, the Gateway stores scan metadata and the normalized result JSON. This can include the requested URL, final URL, URL hash, mode, status, engine versions, and technology results. It does not persist raw HTML, raw page text, cookies, authorization headers, API secrets, or AI prompts.

Gateway cache entries are eligible for reuse for one hour. After that period they are not used as cache hits; expired database rows may remain until the operator's cleanup process. You can request deletion of a scan record at any time by contacting privacy@decodethiswebsite.com.

Transport and permissions

Production deployments transmit scan requests over HTTPS to https://api.decodethiswebsite.com. Local wxt dev builds use the loopback Gateway at http://127.0.0.1:8787; that endpoint is intended for local Docker development, not a public service.

Permissions used

  • activeTab — read the tab the user chose to analyze.
  • scripting — collect the optional, bounded page evidence.
  • storage — preserve scan state in the current browser session.
  • A host permission for the Decode This Website Gateway (https://api.decodethiswebsite.com/* in the store build).

The extension does not request tabs, <all_urls>, webRequest, or permanent access to every website.

Website privacy

The pages at decodethiswebsite.com are static pages. They do not set cookies, collect form submissions, load third-party scripts, or use analytics.

Your choices and contact

Do not click Analyze tab if you do not want the active tab data processed. You can close the browser to clear the extension's session state. To ask a privacy question or request deletion of Gateway scan data, email privacy@decodethiswebsite.com.

Privacy contact

privacy@decodethiswebsite.com

Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated when the extension's data practices change. The effective date at the top of this page identifies the current version.