Anchorite — Privacy Policy
Last updated: 17 August 2026
Anchorite is a browser extension that blocks websites which do not match the task you said you were working on. To decide whether a page matches, it has to look at the page. This document says exactly what it looks at, what leaves your computer, and what is kept.
- Anchorite examines pages only while a focus session is running. With no session active it reads nothing and sends nothing.
- This version has no account — no email address, no name, no sign-up. A paid plan is planned and may require one; if that happens this policy will be updated before it ships, and the commitments below will still hold.
- Your data is never sold, rented, shared, or used for advertising. This is about your data, not about the software — Anchorite is free today and a paid plan is planned, and neither changes this.
- No analytics, no tracking pixels, no third-party trackers.
- The only thing kept on our server is a count of how many requests your install has made, so that one user cannot exhaust the service for everyone.
What Anchorite reads
While a focus session is running, and only then, Anchorite reads the following from each page you open:
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| The page URL and domain | Many decisions are made from the address alone |
| The page title and its headings | The clearest short statement of what a page is |
| The first ~500 characters of the main text | Enough to tell a maths tutorial from a celebrity story |
| The search query that led to the page, when detectable | A search for your topic should not be blocked |
| For YouTube: video title, channel, description, duration | A video is judged by its content, not by the fact it is on YouTube |
Anchorite does not read form fields, passwords, payment details, cookies, or keystrokes. It does not build a browsing history, and it does not retain the pages it has looked at.
One case deserves stating plainly. Tools you have allowed — an AI assistant, a document editor — are normally never examined at all. While a session is running, Anchorite periodically checks whether what is visible on those pages still matches your stated task, so that an allowed tool cannot quietly become an hour of something else. On a chat page that visible text includes the conversation. It is compared against your mission by the model running inside your browser, it is not stored, and it is only sent to our server in the one case where the page has looked unrelated for two continuous minutes.
What leaves your computer
Anchorite decides in three stages, and most pages never reach the internet:
- Local rules. Fixed lists — gambling and adult sites are always blocked; your chosen tools and music are always allowed. Resolved entirely on your computer.
- On-device matching. A small language model runs inside your browser and compares the page against your stated task. No network request. Nothing leaves your computer.
- Adjudication. Only when the first two stages cannot decide is the page description sent for a judgement.
At stage 3 — and only at stage 3 — the data in the table above is sent, over HTTPS, to Anchorite's server, which forwards it to Anthropic's Claude API to obtain a decision. Your task description is sent once at the start of each session for the same purpose.
Anthropic processes this data as a service provider in order to return the decision. Anthropic's own handling of API data is governed by their privacy policy at anthropic.com/legal/privacy. Anchorite does not permit this data to be used to train models.
What is stored, and where
On your computer
Held in browser local storage and never transmitted:
- your current session — the task, the length, when it ends
- your last five missions, so you can reuse one without retyping it
- your saved music links
- your always-allowed tools list
- a randomly generated install identifier
The install identifier is a random string created on your device. It is not derived from your name, your email, your hardware, or your IP address, and it cannot be traced back to you. It exists so the server can count requests.
On Anchorite's server
A count of requests made by each install identifier, today and in total.
That is the complete list. Page content, URLs, titles, and task descriptions are passed through to obtain a decision and are not written to any log, database, or file on our server.
Accountability partners (optional, off by default)
You can nominate up to three people to receive a weekly summary. This is off unless you turn it on, and nothing about it happens if you never add anyone.
What they are sent. Counts only: how long you spent in focus sessions, how many sessions, how many times a page was blocked, and a breakdown of those blocks into broad categories — video, social, shopping, news, gaming, other. That is the whole message.
What they are never sent. Your missions. Any URL. Any page title. Any domain name. Any individual timestamp. The summary cannot say what you were working on or what you tried to open, because that information is never collected for it — the count is incremented and the address discarded at the moment a page is blocked.
Their consent. Nominating someone sends them one email asking whether they want this. Nothing further is sent unless they click to confirm. Every summary carries a one-click unsubscribe that needs no account and takes effect permanently — an address that has unsubscribed cannot be added again.
The install identifier. Turning this on creates a random identifier for your installation, generated on your computer and derived from nothing about you. It exists so a weekly summary can find the addresses that agreed to receive it. It is sent only when you have partners; an installation with none never transmits it.
Removing every partner stops all of it.
Your choices
- Stop all data collection: end the session, or remove the extension. With no session running Anchorite reads nothing.
- Delete everything held locally: remove the extension. Browsers delete an extension's local storage when it is uninstalled.
- Discard your server-side counter: uninstall the extension. The install identifier lives only on your computer, so removing the extension destroys the only link to that counter; a fresh install generates a new identifier and starts from zero. If you would prefer it deleted outright, email the address below.
Children
Anchorite is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect data from them.
Changes
If this policy changes in a way that affects what is collected or where it is sent, the version published with the extension update will say so, and the date at the top will change.
Legal basis (UK/EU users)
Processing is carried out on the basis of legitimate interest in delivering the filtering the user has explicitly requested by starting a session. No data is processed for any purpose beyond returning that decision. Under UK GDPR you have the right to access, rectify, and erase your data; contact the address below.
Anchorite is made by Brandon Jagger.
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