Privacy Policy — BookSync Navigator

BookSync Navigator replaces Chrome’s new-tab page with your bookmarks, shortcuts and widgets. It has no account, no server of its own and no analytics. Everything you set up is stored in your browser and never sent to me. The few services it contacts are optional, listed below, and each receives only what it needs to answer.

• Your bookmarks and most-visited sites — read through Chrome’s own APIs to fill the page and the shortcut picker. BookSync does not copy your browsing history anywhere.
• In chrome.storage.local, on your computer only: columns, boxes and shortcuts, widget settings and their content (notes, countdowns, anniversaries, world clocks, the city you chose for weather), the weather cache, your preferences and search engine choice, and backgrounds — including a photo you pick from your disk, which is downscaled and kept locally.

You can export all of it to a JSON file and import it again from Settings. Removing the extension deletes everything it stored; your bookmarks stay in Chrome.

These are used only when you turn on the feature, and Chrome asks for your permission to reach each server the first time:

• Weather — Open-Meteo (geocoding-api.open-meteo.com, api.open-meteo.com). To find your city, the name you type is sent to the geocoding service; the forecast is then requested with that city’s coordinates. BookSync never reads your device’s location.
• Background photos — Lorem Picsum (picsum.photos) for random photos, and Openverse (api.openverse.org) when you search for one; the search words you type are sent to Openverse. The chosen image is saved locally.
• Website icons — https://www.google.com/s2/favicons, with the domain of a bookmark or shortcut, so Google can return its icon.

Each service sees your IP address, as any website does. Searching from the page’s search box hands the text to the search engine you use in Chrome, through Chrome’s own search API — the same as typing it in the address bar.

There is no other traffic: no analytics, no error reporting, no advertising, no remote code.

• bookmarks — to show your bookmarks in boxes and columns and let you open or rearrange them.
• topSites — to suggest your most-visited sites when you add a shortcut.
• search — to run a search from the page with your default search engine.
• storage, unlimitedStorage — to keep your layout, widgets and backgrounds locally; background images can outgrow the default quota.
• alarms, offscreen — to fire countdown and break-reminder widgets on time and play their sound.
• Optional notifications — requested only when you add a countdown or break-reminder widget, to show its notification.
• Optional tabGroups — requested only when you open a whole box of bookmarks at once, to put them in a named tab group.
• Optional access to the Open-Meteo, Picsum and Openverse servers — requested only when you turn on weather or online backgrounds.

Any optional permission can be revoked at any time in chrome://extensions.

If you also use BookSync Manager, the two extensions can talk to each other through Chrome’s extension messaging, only to share bookmark tags and descriptions. The exchange happens inside your browser; nothing leaves it.

I do not collect, receive, sell or share any of your data, and I do not use it for advertising, credit decisions or anything unrelated to the extension’s single purpose — a new-tab page built around your bookmarks. The use of information received from Chrome APIs adheres to the Chrome Web Store User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Because the data never reaches me, it is fully under your control: you can view, edit, export and delete it in the extension, and remove everything by uninstalling. If you have a question about privacy, or want to exercise a right under the GDPR, write to gdpr@booksync.link. You can also lodge a complaint with the President of the Personal Data Protection Office (UODO), ul. Stawki 2, 00-193 Warsaw, Poland, or with the supervisory authority where you live.

If the extension starts handling data differently, this page is updated before that version is published, and the date above changes. The terms of use are at booksync.link/terms.