Last updated 30 July 2026. Covers the Discerned browser extension and the Discerned website at discerned.online. The two are described separately below, because they do not handle data the same way.
Discerned has no accounts and no server that stores your data. Everything you capture stays in your own browser until you choose to publish it, and when you do, it goes directly from your browser to the Nostr relays you have configured — never through us.
We cannot see what you browse, what you clip, or what you rate. That is not a promise about how we handle your data; it is a consequence of the architecture. There is nowhere for that data to arrive.
The website does use a privacy-preserving visitor counter, described in The website below. The extension contains no analytics or tracking of any kind.
All of the following is stored locally on your device, in the browser's own extension storage and IndexedDB. None of it is transmitted to Discerned.
Clips. When you capture a page, selection, or article, the extension stores the captured text and HTML, the page title and URL, any images inlined into the capture, and the evaluation you attach to it (Signal rating, Qualifier tags, Category, and any note).
Clips are stored unencrypted as structured data in your local browser profile. Encryption at rest is planned but not yet implemented. Anyone with access to your computer and browser profile can read them, and they are included in a browser-profile backup or sync if you have one configured. Please take this into account before clipping sensitive material.
Settings and cached profile data. Your relay list, theme, and other preferences are stored locally. When you sign in, the extension fetches your public Nostr profile and relay list from relays and caches them so it need not re-fetch on every use.
Discerned supports three sign-in modes, and key handling differs in each:
In every mode, your private key is never transmitted to Discerned or any third party. We could not recover it for you if you lost it.
Only three kinds of network traffic originate from the extension:
Relay operators are independent third parties, not Discerned. A relay you connect to can see your IP address and the events you publish or request, as any server you connect to can. Choose relays you trust; you can edit the list at any time in Settings.
On installation, Chrome warns that Discerned can “read and change all your data on all websites.” That warning follows from one design requirement: a web clipper must work on whatever page you are reading, and we cannot know in advance which pages those will be.
In practice the extension reads page content only when you actively invoke it, via the toolbar button or the context menu. It does not monitor pages in the background, does not build a browsing history, and does not send page data anywhere. We request no permission that would let us do so, and the extension is open source, so this is verifiable rather than merely asserted.
discerned.online is a static site hosted by Netlify, which keeps standard server access logs (including IP addresses) as an ordinary part of serving a website. The site sets no advertising cookies and runs no advertising scripts.
Visitor counting. The site uses GoatCounter, an open-source, privacy-focused analytics tool, to count page views and extension downloads. It is cookieless, collects no personal data, does not fingerprint visitors, and does not track you across other websites. It records the page path, referring page, and coarse browser and country information — never an identity, and never anything tied to your Nostr keys or your clips. It runs on the production website only; it is not part of the extension, and it never sees your clips or browsing outside discerned.online.
Feedback form. If you submit the feedback form, the message you write is filed as a public GitHub issue. Do not include anything you would not want published. The form is protected by Cloudflare Turnstile, an anti-abuse check that receives your IP address; Cloudflare and GitHub each handle that data under their own privacy policies. The form deliberately does not attach your identity, sign-in mode, or clip data.
Discerned is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data from them. As we collect no personal data from anyone, this is largely academic — but worth stating plainly.
Clips and settings can be deleted from within the app, and removing the extension deletes its local storage entirely. There is no account to close and nothing for us to delete on your behalf, because we hold nothing.
Casts are the exception, and the important one to understand. Once published, a cast has been distributed to independent relay operators. You can request deletion (a NIP-09 request), but relays are not obliged to honour it and copies may persist indefinitely. Treat casting as permanent and public.
If this policy changes materially, we will update the date at the top and note the change in the extension's release notes. The revision history is public in the project's git repository.
Questions or concerns: open an issue via the feedback page (public), or email steveja007@gmail.com (private).