Privacy Policy

Extension: Block YouTube Shorts + Auto HD/4K
Last updated: February 26, 2026

Overview

Lucent is a Chrome browser extension that helps users reduce distractions on YouTube by hiding UI elements and controlling video playback settings. This policy explains exactly what data the extension accesses, stores, and transmits.

Data We Do Not Collect

• We do not collect, record, or transmit any personal information.
• We do not track browsing history, watch history, or URLs visited.
• We do not collect analytics or usage statistics.
• We do not communicate with any remote server or third-party service.
• We do not use cookies or any cross-site tracking mechanism.

Local Storage Usage

The extension stores your feature preferences (e.g., whether Shorts are hidden, your preferred video quality, playback speed) using two browser-native mechanisms:

• chrome.storage.sync — Stores your on/off toggle states and quality/speed preferences so they persist across browser sessions and sync across your signed-in Chrome devices. Only extension preference values (booleans and short string identifiers) are stored. No personal data or browsing history is ever written here.
• youtube.com localStorage — A small number of preference keys (prefixed ytdf_) are written to YouTube's own page storage. This is required so the content script (which hides page elements) and the player script (which controls video quality) can share settings synchronously without an asynchronous message round-trip. These values are purely the user's own preferences and are never read or transmitted by any party other than this extension.

Permissions Justification

• storage — Required to save your toggle and quality preferences using chrome.storage.sync as described above.
• host_permissions: https://www.youtube.com/*, https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/* — Required to inject the content scripts that hide distracting UI elements and control video playback on YouTube pages, including embedded YouTube players on third-party websites. The extension only operates on YouTube and has no access to any other website.

No Data Sharing

Because no user data is collected, there is nothing to share, sell, or disclose to any third party. All extension functionality is entirely local to your browser.

Changes to This Policy

If this policy is ever updated, the "Last updated" date above will change and the new version will be published at the same URL.

Contact

Questions or concerns about this privacy policy can be directed to: sabih942@gmail.com or via a GitHub issue.