Privacy

Last updated 2026-08-07. Applies to the Archer Chrome extension, every version.

Archer has no server. There is no account, no sign-in, no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporting and no advertising. Nothing you do in Archer is sent to the people who make it, because there is nowhere for it to go. No such service was ever built.

Everything Archer remembers is in your own browser's extension storage, on the device you are using. Uninstalling the extension deletes all of it.

What is stored, and where

All of this lives in chrome.storage.local: your browser, your machine. None of it syncs, and none of it leaves the device except where the next section says so.

What	Why	Kept until
Your chosen destination (Search, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity)	So a new tab opens the way you left it	You change it
Prompts you launch from the new tab	To offer them back as rows, and to label a conversation with the prompt that started it	The most recent 200. "Clear prompt history" in settings erases them
Pinned and dismissed rows	So the list stays the way you arranged it	You unpin, or dismiss again
Saved prompts	The `/slash` library	You delete them
Favourites	The tiles under the search box	You remove them
Your OpenAI API key, model and budget	To answer on the page, billed to your own OpenAI account	You clear it in settings
Weather place and last reading	To draw the weather card without refetching every tab	You turn weather off
Whether you dismissed the default-engine hint	So it stays dismissed	Reinstall

Archer never reads the contents of pages you visit. It has no content scripts and no host permissions on any site you browse.

What leaves the device

Only these, and only for the features you switch on.

Your search terms, to your own default search engine: When a prompt is routed to Search, Archer calls Chrome's own chrome.search API. Chrome sends the query to whatever engine you have set as default. Archer does not choose the engine, does not see the response, and has no search provider of its own.
Your prompt, to the site you picked: Choosing ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity navigates the tab to that site with your prompt in the address, exactly as if you had typed it there. Their privacy policies apply from that point, as they would anyway.
Your prompt and your API key, to OpenAI: Only if you have entered a key and chosen "Answer here". The request goes from your browser straight to api.openai.com. It is not proxied, mirrored or logged anywhere else, and the key is never transmitted to anyone but OpenAI. OpenAI's privacy policy.
A place name and its coordinates, to Open-Meteo: Only if you have set a place for the weather card. Archer sends the place name you typed to look up its coordinates, then the coordinates to get a forecast. Nothing identifying you is sent, and your browser is never asked for its location: Archer does not request the geolocation permission at all. Open-Meteo's privacy policy.

That is the complete list.

Permissions, and what each is for

Archer asks for two permissions when you install it.

search: To hand a query to your default search engine through Chrome's own API. This is also what the Chrome Web Store requires of a new tab page, so that your choice of search provider is respected rather than replaced.
storage: Somewhere to keep the settings in the table above.

Everything else is optional and off until you turn it on. Chrome asks at the moment you enable the feature, and Archer's settings page lists all of them with an on/off switch.

Permission	Enabled by	Used for
`history`	"Show your recent conversations"	Finding `chatgpt.com` conversation addresses so they can be rows. Every other history entry is discarded before it is read
`topSites`	"Show top sites" in the plus menu	The sites you visit most, as rows
`sessions` and `tabs`	"Show recently closed tabs" in the plus menu	Reopening a tab you closed. Chrome will not reveal a closed tab's title without `tabs`, which is why this one asks for more
`clipboardRead`	"Paste" in the plus menu	Reading the clipboard at the moment you choose Paste, and at no other time
`api.openai.com`	Saving an API key	Streaming an answer onto the page
`api.open-meteo.com`, `geocoding-api.open-meteo.com`	Saving a weather place	The weather card

Revoking any of them in Archer's settings turns off the feature and nothing else.

Children

Archer is not directed at children and collects nothing from anyone.

Changes

Material changes will be noted here and in the extension's release notes, with the date at the top of this page updated. The source is public: every claim above is checkable at github.com/thellis954/archer-tabs.

Contact

Open an issue at github.com/thellis954/archer-tabs/issues.