LibreShield Autor: Gleb Goodkovsky

LibreShield 🛡️

A powerful, private, and fully-free content blocker designed as a browser extension. Take control of your browsing experience by blocking unwanted domains, filtering content by keywords, and safeguarding your settings with a robust password system.



⚠️ Important User Information

Data Handling & Security

LibreShield is built with privacy as a core principle. All your settings are stored locally in your browser's own secure storage.

• Strong Password Protection 🔒: Your settings are secured by a password. This password is never stored directly. Instead, it's protected using a strong cryptographic hashing function (PBKDF2 with a 100,000-iteration SHA-256 hash and a random salt). This industry-standard method makes it extremely difficult for anyone to access your settings without the correct password.
• No Cloud Storage ☁️: Your data never leaves your computer and is never sent to any external servers. Your privacy is paramount.
• Privacy Policy 📜: For a detailed breakdown of permissions and data handling, please see the PRIVACY.md file included in this repository.

✨ Features

• Comprehensive Blocking 🚫
  • Domain Blocking: Prevent access to entire websites (e.g., unwanted-site.com).
  • Keyword Blocking: Scans page content and blocks pages containing specific words or phrases.
• Temporary Access ⏳
  • Request Timed Access: From the block page, you can grant temporary access to a blocked site or keyword for a specific number of minutes.
  • Password Gated: Temporary access requires the correct password, preventing easy bypasses.
  • Manage Active Unblocks: View and manage all active temporary permissions from the settings page.
• Secure & Manageable Password 🔐
  • Protect your settings page with a password to prevent unauthorized changes.
  • Easily change or remove your password from within the settings.
  • Includes a login attempt lockout to prevent brute-force attacks.
• Site Allowlist ✅
  • Easily create a list of trusted sites that will always bypass blocking rules.
• User-Friendly Interface 🖥️
  • Toggle Blocking On/Off: Quickly enable or disable all blocking functionality from the popup.
  • Contextual Site Actions: Block or allow the current website with a single click from the extension's popup.
  • Customizable Block Page: Personalize the message displayed on the page that appears when content is blocked.
  • Theme Options: Switch between light and dark modes for a comfortable user interface.
• Data Management 💾
  • Settings Backup & Restore: Export your entire configuration to a JSON file and import it later or on another device.
• Firefox/LibreWolf Focused 🦊
  • Built using standard WebExtension APIs for excellent compatibility with Firefox, LibreWolf, and other Gecko-based browsers.

🛠️ How It Works (Tech Stack)

LibreShield is built using core web technologies and the powerful WebExtensions API:
- HTML: Structures the user interfaces for the options, popup, and block pages.
- CSS: Styles the entire extension, including responsive design and theme management.
- JavaScript (Vanilla JS): Powers all the interactive logic, including:
- background.js: Manages web request blocking, password verification, and temporary unblock timers.
- content.js: Handles on-page keyword scanning and communicates with the background script.
- UI Logic: Manages the options page, popup interactions, and the block page.
- WebExtensions API (browser.): The browser-provided API for storage, webRequest, tabs, and runtime features, which are the backbone of the extension's functionality.



🚀 How to Use

1. Install the Extension
   • From Source (for Developers): Follow the "Running Locally" steps below.
   • (Future) From Official Stores: Links to the Firefox Add-ons store will be provided here once it's officially published.
2. Set Your Password
   • The first time you open the settings page, you will be required to create a password. This keeps your rules and settings secure.
3. Manage Settings
   • Click the "Manage Settings" button in the popup to open the main options page.
   • Manage Lists: Add or remove items from your Blocked Domains, Blocked Keywords, and Allowed Sites lists.
   • Customize: Change the message shown on the block page and switch between light and dark themes.
   • Backup/Restore: Export your settings to a file for safekeeping.
4. Encountering a Blocked Page
   • If you land on a page that is blocked, you will see the LibreShield block screen.
   • If you need temporary access, you can enter your password and specify a duration (in minutes) to bypass the block.

💻 Running Locally (For Development in Firefox/LibreWolf)

To run LibreShield from its source code for development or testing:

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/GlebGoodkovsky/libreshield-project.git


1. Navigate into the project directory:

cd libreshield-project


1. Load as a Temporary Add-on in Firefox/LibreWolf:
   • Open the debugging page by navigating to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox in your browser.
   • Click "Load Temporary Add-on...".
   • Navigate into the libreshield-project directory you just cloned and select the manifest.json file.

The extension icon will now appear in your browser's toolbar. Note that temporary add-ons are removed when you close the browser.



🤝 Contributing

Suggestions, bug reports, and pull requests are warmly welcome! Please feel free to open an issue to discuss features or submit changes



A Note on the Learning Process

This project was created as a hands-on exercise to develop a full-featured browser extension. It demonstrates core concepts of WebExtension development, including background scripts, content scripts, user interfaces, and persistent storage. The goal was to build a simple, understandable, yet fully functional content blocker. I used an AI assistant as a tool to help write and, more importantly, explain the code, using it as a learning partner to grasp fundamentals step-by-step.