Chrome Extension Privacy Policy
Overview
bigbrowser is a self-hosted, privacy-first browser history tool. The extension captures your browsing activity and sends it exclusively to a server instance that you configure and control. The developer (Thomas Sileo) does not collect, receive, store, or have access to any of your browsing data.
Data collected
The extension captures the following data as you browse:
Web history: URLs, page titles, timestamps, and navigation metadata (transition type, referring tab) for pages you visit.
Website content: The rendered HTML of visited pages, used to enable full-text search of your history.
User activity: Tab activation events and navigation events used to track browsing sessions.
Favicons: Page icons, fetched and converted to data URLs for display in the history UI.
Cookies: Only when you explicitly trigger a page snapshot. Cookies are sent to your self-hosted server to enable server-side archival of the page.
HTTP response headers: Status codes and headers from page loads, used to enrich visit records.
How data is used
All captured data is transmitted exclusively to the bigbrowser server instance whose URL you provide in the extension settings. This is a server you run yourself. No data is sent to the developer or any third party.
Data is used solely to provide the extension's single purpose: recording your browsing history and making it searchable on your own instance.
Data sharing
Your data is not shared with any third party. It goes only to the self-hosted server URL you configure. The developer has no access to it.
Data retention and deletion
Data retention is entirely under your control, as all data resides on your own server. You can delete visits, snapshots, and other records through the bigbrowser web interface at any time.
Permissions
The extension requests the following browser permissions, each used solely to fulfill its single purpose:
activeTab, tabs: To access the
current tab's URL, title, and favicon when recording a visit.
webNavigation: To detect page
navigations and history state updates.
history: To access browser
history metadata.
storage: To persist your server
URL, API key, and session state locally.
cookies: To collect cookies when
you explicitly trigger a page snapshot.
webRequest: To capture HTTP
response headers for visited pages.
scripting: To inject scripts
that capture rendered HTML for full-text indexing.
Host permissions: To send
captured data to your self-hosted instance and to observe responses from
visited pages.
Chrome Web Store: Limited Use disclosure
The use of information received from browser APIs will adhere to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically:
Data collected by this extension is used solely to provide the extension's single purpose (recording and searching your browser history). It is not sold, transferred to third parties, or used for advertising, profiling, or any purpose unrelated to that single purpose.
Questions? Contact thomas.sileo@sent.com