Privacy policy
Split for Hacker News Privacy
Last updated:
Split for Hacker News has no analytics, telemetry, account, advertising, or application backend. It reads URLs—not article text—to locate exact Hacker News submissions.
Manual by default
What a discussion lookup processes
When you open the extension popup, it reads the active page URL and, if present, the URL in that page’s canonical link. Before a search, it removes fragments and recognized tracking parameters and rejects private, local, special-use, credential-bearing, or apparently secret-bearing URLs. Eligible public URL candidates are sent over HTTPS to Algolia’s public Hacker News Search API and checked locally for an exact match.
The extension does not read the article body, forms, messages, or other page content. Algolia is the only third party that receives lookup candidates from the extension and may process ordinary connection metadata under its own privacy policy.
User control
Optional and explicit entry points
Automatic badge
Off by default. When enabled, eligible public tab URLs can be sent to Algolia as tabs navigate so the toolbar can show a comment count. Turning it off stops checks and clears badges and lookup cache entries.
Open in Split
The context-menu item receives a link URL only after you select it. The extension opens that link in the clicked tab and applies the same eligibility and sanitization boundary before any lookup.
HN story clicks
Off by default. When enabled, a content script limited to news.ycombinator.com observes a story-link click and reads that link and item ID. This flow stays on the device and performs no Algolia lookup.
Storage and retention
What stays in Chrome
The automatic-badge and Hacker News story-click settings are stored in chrome.storage.local. Time-bounded lookup results, selected side-panel content, and article-to-discussion tab associations use chrome.storage.session, which Chrome discards when the browser session ends. The extension does not create a persistent browsing history.
Real Hacker News, embedded
How the side panel works
The side panel embeds the real news.ycombinator.com discussion. Hacker News therefore receives the same ordinary request metadata and cookies it would receive in a normal tab. The extension does not read the framed page, its cookies, or your Hacker News session.
Hacker News normally blocks framing. While the panel is open, the extension temporarily removes X-Frame-Options, Content-Security-Policy, and Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only headers from Hacker News sub-frame responses. The rule is removed when the panel closes, never affects top-level Hacker News pages or another domain, and does not read, block, or redirect requests. Because Chrome cannot scope this rule to one extension frame, the temporary exception applies to any Hacker News sub-frame in that browser profile while the panel is open.
Documented capabilities
Why the extension asks for permissions
Chrome permissions support reading eligible tab and canonical URLs after the relevant action, running the short-lived canonical-link check, storing settings and session state, adding the one context-menu item, opening the side panel, and applying the temporary Hacker News sub-frame rule. Host access is limited to Algolia’s Hacker News API and Hacker News itself. The complete permission-by-permission explanation is maintained in the canonical policy linked below.
Your choices
Control and contact
Keep both optional settings off to use manual lookups only. Uninstalling the extension removes its local storage. Privacy questions can be sent to me@maximtop.dev or reported through GitHub Issues.
This page is a readable summary. The canonical, version-controlled policy is PRIVACY.md on GitHub.