NODUS HN Radar — Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 2026 · v0.15.2

1. OVERVIEW

NODUS HN Radar is a fully local-first browser extension. It enhances the reading experience on news.ycombinator.com and surfaces trending posts via the public Hacker News API. No server, no account, no login, no cloud sync, no telemetry.

1. DATA STORED LOCALLY

Everything below lives in chrome.storage.local (or browser.storage.local on Firefox) and never leaves the browser:

• settings: theme, font size, reading width, UI language, translation preferences, zebra-stripe color/intensity, etc.
• visited: list of HN post IDs you clicked from the front page, with timestamps (used to gray out visited posts; 30-day TTL with auto-prune).
• pinned: posts you explicitly pinned via 📌 — id, title, url, domain, score snapshot, comment count, age, tags, pin timestamp.
• collapsedCards: which pinned cards you have collapsed in the side panel.
• recentTags: last 40 tag names used, for autocomplete.
• mutedDomains: domains you have muted (posts from them are hidden from Radar).
• radar: snapshots of HN post data (score, comments) over time, used to compute velocity.
• opActiveCache: "author replied in thread" detection cache, keyed by post ID, with 10-minute TTL.
• comments_<postId>: hover-preview comment cache, with 10-minute TTL.

Uninstalling the extension wipes all of the above. There is no user account and no way for us to identify you.

1. EXTERNAL ENDPOINTS

The extension makes network calls to exactly two domains, both belonging to Hacker News itself:

a) https://news.ycombinator.com/*
The site you are reading. The content script enhances pages you load yourself — no proactive fetching.

b) https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/*
Hacker News' public Firebase API. Used to fetch trending lists (top/show/ask/best) and individual item details for the Radar dashboard. Only the post ID is sent. No identifying information about you.

We do NOT contact any NODUS server, any analytics service, or any third party.

1. IN-BROWSER TRANSLATION

Translations happen entirely on your device. The extension uses Chrome's built-in Translator API (Chrome 138+) which downloads a small language model locally on first use and translates text without sending it to any server. If your browser does not support this API, translation features simply do nothing — there is no cloud fallback.

1. WHAT WE NEVER DO
2. Sell your data to anyone
3. Send anything to NODUS servers (this extension has no backend)
4. Track which posts you read, click, or pin
5. Track sites visited outside news.ycombinator.com
6. Use third-party analytics or ad SDKs
7. Read or store your HN account data, comments, or replies
8. Access microphone, camera, clipboard, or downloads
9. Inject ads or affiliate links
10. Require an account, login, or email
11. Sync your tags, pins, or preferences to the cloud
12. YOUR RIGHTS (GDPR / LGPD / CCPA)

The extension complies with GDPR (EU), LGPD (Brazil), and CCPA (California). Because all data is local and we do no profiling or cross-site tracking, most rights are exercised directly via your browser:

• Access: open chrome://extensions → HN Radar → Inspect → Application → Storage to see all stored data.
• Deletion: uninstalling the extension deletes everything.
• Portability: data is plain JSON in chrome.storage.local, exportable from DevTools.
• Opt-out: disable the Lens master toggle in the side panel any time.

Legal basis for processing: legitimate interest (delivering the reading layer you installed). No personally identifiable information is processed.

1. CONTACT

Privacy questions or feature requests: mmcarvalho.dev@gmail.com
Project page: https://nodus-ai.app/hn-radar
Full policy (HTML): https://nodus-ai.app/hn-radar-privacy

This policy may be updated. Material changes will be noted in extension release notes. Continued use after an update constitutes acceptance.