LinkSlinger Privacy Policy

Last Updated: February 20, 2026

LinkSlinger collects zero data. Period.

We believe your browsing activity is your business, not ours. LinkSlinger is designed from the ground up to respect your privacy by processing everything locally on your device.

What We Don't Collect

LinkSlinger does NOT collect, store, transmit, or have access to:

  • Your browsing history
  • The websites you visit
  • The links you select
  • Your clipboard contents
  • Your bookmarks
  • Your personal information
  • Usage statistics or analytics
  • Crash reports
  • Error logs
  • IP addresses
  • Device information
  • Any identifiable information

We have no servers. We have no databases. We have no analytics. We cannot see what you do.

How LinkSlinger Works

100% Local Processing

All of LinkSlinger's functionality happens entirely within your browser:

  1. Link Selection: When you hold the Z key and drag to select links, this happens in your browser's memory. No data is sent anywhere.
  2. Link Processing: When you open, copy, or bookmark links, Chrome's built-in APIs handle these actions locally. No external servers are involved.
  3. Settings Storage: Your preferences (activation key, default action, blocklist, etc.) are stored using Chrome's chrome.storage.sync API, which syncs across your Chrome browsers if you're signed in to Chrome. This is handled entirely by Google/Chrome—we never see this data.
  4. Clipboard Operations: When you copy links, the offscreen document writes directly to your local clipboard. No data is transmitted.

No External Communication

LinkSlinger makes zero network requests. You can verify this yourself:

  1. Open Chrome DevTools (F12)
  2. Go to the Network tab
  3. Use LinkSlinger to select and process links
  4. Observe: Zero network activity from LinkSlinger

The extension is completely self-contained with no external dependencies.

Data Storage

What Is Stored Locally

LinkSlinger stores only your settings preferences using Chrome's storage API:

  • Activation key (default: 'z')
  • Default action (tabs, window, copy, or bookmark)
  • Smart selection toggle (on/off)
  • Domain blocklist (domains you choose to exclude)
  • Clipboard format preference (plain text, HTML, or Markdown)

Where Settings Are Stored

Settings are stored using chrome.storage.sync, which means:

  • Stored locally on your device
  • Optionally synced across your Chrome browsers (if you're signed in to Chrome)
  • Managed by Chrome/Google, not by LinkSlinger
  • Never seen by us - we have no access to Chrome's storage

How to Clear Your Data

You can clear all LinkSlinger data at any time:

Method 1: Through the extension

  1. Right-click the LinkSlinger icon
  2. Select "Options"
  3. Scroll to the bottom
  4. Click "Reset to Defaults" or "Clear All Data"

Method 2: Through Chrome

  1. Go to chrome://extensions/
  2. Find LinkSlinger
  3. Click "Remove"
  4. All settings are immediately deleted

Permissions Explained

LinkSlinger requests several permissions. Here's exactly what each one is used for and what it doesn't give us access to:

Storage

▼
  • Used for: Saving your preferences (activation key, default action, etc.)
  • Does NOT: Give us access to your data
  • Data stays: On your device, managed by Chrome

Tabs

▼
  • Used for: Opening selected links in new tabs or windows
  • Does NOT: Give us access to your browsing history or tab contents
  • Only used: When you explicitly select links to open

clipboardWrite

▼
  • Used for: Writing selected links to your clipboard when you choose "Copy to Clipboard"
  • Does NOT: Read your clipboard or access existing clipboard contents
  • Only used: When you explicitly choose the copy action

Bookmarks

▼
  • Used for: Creating bookmarks from selected links when you choose "Bookmark"
  • Does NOT: Read or access your existing bookmarks
  • Only used: When you explicitly choose the bookmark action

Offscreen

▼
  • Used for: Enabling clipboard write functionality (Manifest V3 requirement)
  • Does NOT: Access any webpage content or user data
  • Technical: Required because service workers can't access clipboard directly

Host Permissions (<all_urls>)

▼
  • Used for: Enabling the content script to detect and select links on any webpage
  • Does NOT: Give us access to webpage content, forms, passwords, or personal data
  • Only used: To identify <a> elements (links) when you activate selection mode

We request only the minimum permissions required for functionality. Every permission serves a specific, user-facing feature.

Third-Party Services

None. Zero. Zilch.

LinkSlinger uses no third-party services:

  • No analytics services (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, etc.)
  • No error tracking (Sentry, Rollbar, etc.)
  • No advertising networks
  • No CDNs for external resources
  • No external APIs
  • No update servers (updates come through Chrome Web Store only)

All code is bundled within the extension package. Nothing is loaded from external sources.

Open Source Transparency

Code Verification

LinkSlinger is 100% open source. You can review every line of code:

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/DontPokeMe/linkslinger

What you'll find:

  • Complete source code for all functionality
  • No obfuscated or minified code
  • No external dependencies
  • No tracking or analytics code
  • Comments explaining what the code does

How to verify:

  1. Download the source code from GitHub
  2. Compare it with the installed extension files
  3. Read the code yourself or have a security expert review it

We welcome security researchers to audit our code.

Security

Extension Security

Code Execution: All code is static and bundled within the extension. No code is loaded from remote servers (this is now enforced by Manifest V3).

Content Security Policy: We use a strict Content Security Policy that prevents:

  • Inline script execution
  • External script loading
  • eval() or similar unsafe operations

Manifest V3: Built with the latest Chrome extension security standards, including:

  • Service worker architecture (no persistent background pages)
  • Declarative permissions
  • Enhanced security boundaries

Your Security

What we protect:

  • Your browsing activity remains private
  • Your selected links never leave your device
  • No data breaches possible (because we don't collect data)
  • No tracking or fingerprinting

What you should know:

  • Links you select may contain sensitive information—treat clipboard contents accordingly
  • When syncing settings via Chrome, this is handled by Google's infrastructure
  • We recommend reviewing any extension's permissions before installation

Children's Privacy

LinkSlinger does not collect any information from anyone, including children under 13. Since we collect no data at all, we are compliant with COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) and similar regulations worldwide.

International Users

LinkSlinger works the same way for all users worldwide:

  • No data collection regardless of location
  • No geo-tracking or location services
  • No regional differences in privacy practices
  • GDPR compliant by design (no personal data processing)
  • CCPA compliant by design (no personal information sold or shared)

Since we collect no data, there's no data to be subject to data protection regulations. We comply by simply not collecting anything.

Chrome Sync

If you're signed in to Chrome and have sync enabled, Chrome may sync your LinkSlinger settings across your devices. This is a Chrome feature, not a LinkSlinger feature.

What Chrome may sync:

  • Your LinkSlinger preferences (activation key, default action, etc.)

How Chrome handles this:

  • Data is encrypted in transit
  • Data is stored on Google's servers
  • Google's privacy policy applies to synced data
  • You can disable sync in Chrome settings

What LinkSlinger does:

  • Uses Chrome's storage API
  • Has no control over syncing
  • Has no access to synced data on servers
  • Cannot see what Chrome syncs

For more information, see Google Chrome Privacy Policy.

Updates to This Policy

If we ever change our privacy practices (though we can't imagine adding data collection), we will:

  1. Update this privacy policy with a new "Last Updated" date
  2. Notify users through the Chrome Web Store update notes
  3. Post changes on our GitHub repository
  4. Ensure changes are backwards compatible (won't break existing functionality)

Current version: 1.0 (Initial release)

Contact Us

Privacy Questions

If you have questions about this privacy policy or how LinkSlinger handles (or doesn't handle) your data:

Security Researchers

If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it responsibly:

We take security seriously and will respond to legitimate reports promptly.

Transparency Report

0
Data Requests
We've received zero data requests from law enforcement, governments, or other entities because we have no data to provide.
0
Bytes Shared
We've shared zero user data because we collect no user data.
0
Data Breaches
We've had zero data breaches because there's no data to breach.

Verification

How to Verify Our Claims

Check Network Activity:

  1. Open Chrome DevTools (F12)
  2. Go to Network tab
  3. Use LinkSlinger
  4. See: No network requests

Check Permissions:

  1. Go to chrome://extensions/
  2. Find LinkSlinger
  3. Click "Details"
  4. Review: All permissions are necessary and explained

Check Code:

  1. Visit our GitHub repository
  2. Read the source code
  3. Verify: No tracking, no analytics, no external calls

Check Storage:

  1. Open Chrome DevTools (F12)
  2. Go to Application tab → Storage
  3. Check chrome.storage for LinkSlinger
  4. See: Only your settings, nothing else

Summary

LinkSlinger's Privacy in One Sentence:

We don't collect, store, transmit, or have access to any of your data—everything happens locally on your device.

Why Trust Us?

  • Open Source: All code is public and auditable
  • No Network Requests: Verifiable with DevTools
  • Minimal Permissions: Only what's necessary for features
  • Manifest V3: Latest security standards
  • No Incentive: We don't have a business model that requires your data

Our Philosophy:

Privacy isn't a feature—it's a fundamental right. LinkSlinger is built for researchers, investigators, and privacy-conscious users who need powerful tools without surveillance.

Legal

This privacy policy applies to LinkSlinger, a browser extension developed as part of the dontpoke.me toolkit.

  • Developer: dontpoke.me
  • Location: Privacy-focused, location irrelevant (we collect no data)
  • License: MIT License (Open Source)

Applicable Law: Since we collect no data, no data protection laws are triggered. However, we design LinkSlinger to comply with GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, and other privacy regulations worldwide.

Your Rights

Because we collect no data, questions about data rights are largely moot. However, for completeness:

Right to Access

▼

What data do you have about me? None. We collect nothing.

Right to Deletion

▼

Delete my data. There's no data to delete. Uninstall the extension to remove local settings.

Right to Portability

▼

Export my data. Your settings are in Chrome's storage. You can view them in DevTools.

Right to Object

▼

Stop processing my data. We don't process your data. Everything is local.

Right to Be Forgotten

▼

Forget me. We never knew you existed. We have no user accounts or identifiers.

Questions? Concerns? Suggestions?

We're committed to transparency. If anything in this privacy policy is unclear, please let us know.

LinkSlinger: Built for privacy. Built for you.