tiny-herd-public

Tiny Herd — Privacy Policy

Last updated: 8 August 2026

Tiny Herd is a virtual pet that lives at the bottom of your web pages. It is designed to work entirely on your device. No data is transmitted, collected, or sold — there are no servers, no analytics, and no tracking of any kind.

What the extension stores (on your device only)

• Settings — your pet’s species, colour, name, size, speed, per-site hide list, and on/off toggles (including break reminders and their interval, and fun announcements). Stored in Chrome’s extension storage (chrome.storage.sync), which Chrome may sync between your own signed-in browsers. We never see it.
• Progress — your pet’s XP/level, your daily visit streak, unlocked achievements, the date of its last greeting, and a one-time update notice. Stored locally (chrome.storage.local).
• Play statistics — simple counters used to award achievements: how many balls you’ve thrown, how many focus blocks you’ve completed, how many downloads have finished, and the highest number of tabs you’ve had open at once. These are plain numbers with no detail about what you downloaded or which tabs were open. Stored locally.
• Focus session state — whether a focus session is running, whether you’re in the focus or break phase, and when the current phase ends. Stored locally so the session survives your browser restarting the extension in the background.
• Break timer state — the numeric ID Chrome assigns to your current tab, plus timestamps for when you arrived and when you were last reminded. No URL, page title, or page content is stored — only a temporary tab number and the clock times needed to measure a duration.
• Pet position — where the pet was standing, remembered for your current browser session only (chrome.storage.session).

What the extension observes (and never records or transmits)

• Mouse movement and scrolling on pages you visit — used only so the pet can react in the moment (chase your cursor, get startled by fast scrolling). These events are processed in memory and immediately discarded. They are never stored or sent anywhere.
• Tab titles — the extension watches for unread-count patterns like “(3) Inbox” in tab titles so your pet can announce new notifications. The hostname of the site (e.g. mail.google.com) may appear in that speech bubble. Titles are compared in memory and never stored or transmitted.
• How long you stay on one tab — to offer the optional break reminder, the extension measures how much uninterrupted time you spend on the currently active tab. It notices when you switch tabs or navigate, so it can restart the timer — it does not record where you went, and it keeps no history of visited sites.
• Whether you’re at your keyboard — Chrome tells the extension only whether your computer is “active”, “idle”, or “locked”, so the pet can nap while you’re away and your break timer can pause. The extension cannot see what you are doing, in or out of the browser.
• How many tabs are open — a count only, used for the optional milestone announcement (“whoa, 20 tabs?”) and one achievement. The extension does not read the list of tabs or their addresses for this.
• Free system memory — so the pet can warn you when your computer is running low on RAM, the extension reads how much memory is free versus total, once a minute. This is a single whole-machine ratio: it reveals nothing about individual programs, tabs, or what you have open. The reading itself is never stored — only the time of the last warning and whether it was the mild or the urgent one, so the pet doesn’t repeat itself.
• Completed downloads — the filename of a finished download is shown in the pet’s speech bubble, and a running total is counted for an achievement. Filenames are never stored or transmitted.
• The current site’s hostname — used for the “hide pet on this site” option and stored in your settings only if you use it.

Photo cards

The “photo card” feature draws an image of your pet on your device and saves it straight to your downloads. It is generated locally and never uploaded.

What we never do

• No data leaves your device. The extension makes zero network requests.
• No analytics, no fingerprinting, no ads, no selling of anything.
• No browsing history. The extension never builds a record of the sites you visit or how long you spent on each one — break timing is a single live countdown that resets when you move, and is never written down.
• No reading of page content — the pet draws itself over pages; it does not read what’s on them.

Permissions, in plain words

Permission	Why
storage	Save your settings, XP, streak, and achievements on your device
alarms	A once-a-minute timer that awards browsing XP and checks whether a focus phase, break reminder, memory warning, or hourly check-in is due
downloads	Notice when a download finishes so the pet can announce it
tabs	Read tab titles for unread-count announcements, the current site’s hostname for per-site hide, tab switches to time break reminders, and the number of open tabs for milestones
idle	Pause break and focus timers, and let the pet nap, while you’re away from your computer
system.memory	Read how much system memory is free so the pet can warn you when it’s running low

Clearing your data

Everything lives in your browser. Removing the extension from chrome://extensions deletes all of it — settings, XP, streaks, achievements, and timers. There is nothing stored anywhere else.

Contact

Questions or concerns: open an issue at github.com/gtrtuugii/tiny-herd-public or email chobydev@gmail.com.

Changes to this policy will be posted on this page with an updated date.