Elsewhere — Privacy Policy
Last updated: 25 October 2026
Elsewhere is a browser extension that helps you find free and open-access versions of research papers and the same news story from other outlets, and what people are saying about it online. This policy explains what the extension does with your information. The short version: we don't collect, store, sell or share your personal data. We have no servers and no analytics.
What Elsewhere does on your device
- Detects articles locally. When you click the toolbar icon, or (if you have allowed it) when a page finishes loading to show the toolbar badge, the extension reads the page's headline, authors, date and identifiers (such as a DOI) on your device. Nothing is sent anywhere just because a page was detected.
- Stores your settings. Your preferences, such as an optional Unpaywall email address, an optional library link, and which fallback links to show, are saved with Chrome's storage. If you use Chrome sync, Chrome may sync these settings between your own devices. We never receive them.
What is sent to third-party services, and when
Elsewhere only contacts other services when you click the icon or open the "Dive deeper" results page. There is no Elsewhere server in between: your browser contacts these services directly.
| When | What is sent | To |
| You open a research paper and click the icon | The paper's DOI, PubMed ID or PMCID | OpenAlex (api.openalex.org) |
| You added an Unpaywall email in Settings | The DOI and the email you entered | Unpaywall (api.unpaywall.org) |
| You click "Dive deeper" | The article's headline, and key words from it | Google News and Bing News search feeds |
| The results page looks for stories from major outlets and a background article | A few key words from the headline (never the page itself or anything about you) | Google News (news.google.com) and Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) |
| The "What people are saying" tab loads with the results page | A few key words from the headline | Hacker News search (hn.algolia.com), Lemmy servers (lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, sh.itjust.works, lemmy.ca) and Bluesky public search (api.bsky.app) |
| The headline looks technology-related | A few key words from the headline | Stack Exchange (api.stackexchange.com) and DEV (dev.to) |
| The results page tidies up Google News links | The Google News link for each story; Google may receive your existing Google cookies, as it would when you visit Google News | news.google.com |
| The results page shows outlet logos | The domain of each outlet | Google's favicon service |
| The results page shows pictures | Your browser loads the pictures from Bing or from the news sites themselves | Those services and sites |
| You allowed "article pictures" and the results page loads | A request for each story's web page, without cookies, to read its preview image | The news sites listed in the results |
These services have their own privacy policies and may log your IP address and the request, as any website you visit would. We have no control over, and no access to, those logs.
Each of these extra sources can be switched off in Settings, under "Sources on the results page". Posts and comments from forums and social sites are other people's public words. Elsewhere shows them only as short quotes with a link to the original, does not store them, shows no profile pictures, and skips posts flagged by the source's own labels, adult content, strong language and link-only posts. They are not fact-checked.
If you click a result, a normal link opens in a new tab, as when you click any link.
Permissions and why they are needed
- activeTab and scripting: read the current page's article details when you click the icon.
- storage: save your settings.
- contextMenus: the right-click "Find accessible versions" item.
- Access to OpenAlex, Unpaywall, Google News, Bing News and Google favicons: the lookups in the table above. The other sources in the table are public services that accept requests from browser extensions, so they need no extra permission.
- Optional access to all websites: requested once, only if you agree. It lets Elsewhere show the toolbar badge automatically and read each article's preview picture on the results page. Elsewhere works without it. You can turn it off at any time in Settings.
What we don't do
- We don't collect or store personal information, browsing history or page content on any server.
- We don't use analytics, advertising, tracking or fingerprinting.
- We don't sell or share data with anyone, or use it for creditworthiness, lending or any purpose unrelated to the extension's function.
- We don't load or run remote code.
This website
This website does not use cookies, analytics or tracking. If you email us or use the contact form, we use your message only to reply. The contact form sends what you type (your name, email address, topic and message) through Web3Forms (web3forms.com), which delivers it to us by email. The Elsewhere page can show a YouTube video (youtube-nocookie.com); The video starts playing, muted, when the page opens, and YouTube may set cookies when it loads or plays.
Support and contact emails
When you email us (dev439adem@gmail.com) or use a contact form, we keep your message, a masked version of your email address and our replies in a private support system so we can answer you. Only we can access it. Closed conversations are deleted after 12 months. The system runs on Cloudflare. We use an AI assistant from an outside provider to read incoming messages, summarise them and draft replies for us to review; it never sends emails itself. To read and reply to messages sent to our support addresses we use the Gmail API; our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
Optional tips
Elsewhere is free. If you choose to leave a tip, the tip button opens a page run by a third-party payment service in a new tab. Elsewhere does not see or handle any payment details, and does not know whether you tipped. That service's own privacy policy applies to the tip.
Children
Elsewhere is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect any information from anyone.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, we will update the date above, and the new version will apply from then on.
Contact
Questions or a problem to report? Email dev439adem@gmail.com with the subject "Elsewhere support".