Privy

Firefox Add-on License: MPL 2.0

Privy is a browser extension that can open URL in private tab and search selected text in private tab.

Available on Firefox Add-ons. Chromium builds are not published to the Chrome Web Store — build from source and load the extension unpacked (see section 2.2).

Open the current tab URL in a private tab. Click the Privy Button on the top right corner of the browser.

Search the selected text in a private tab. Select some text in a webpage and choose Search Privately from the context menu.

Privy requests the minimum it needs to work.

The optional permission is only requested when you use the context menu feature. Privy collects no data, sends nothing to any server, and has no analytics.

Install directly from the official listing:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privy/

There is no Chrome Web Store release. Build from source, then load the unpacked extension:

1. Follow the build steps in section 3 using the chromium target.
2. Open your browser and go to chrome://extensions (or edge://extensions, brave://extensions).
3. Enable Developer mode.
4. Click Load unpacked.
5. Select the generated folder, for example dist/privy.chromium.v.1.0.1/.

The extension stays installed until you remove it, but Chromium may prompt you about developer-mode extensions on each browser restart.

Privy builds both browser targets from a single source tree. Each target has its own manifest (manifest.firefox.json, manifest.chromium.json), and a custom Node.js script assembles a versioned bundle for the target you choose.

git clone https://github.com/theashiq/Privy.git

cd Privy

The build uses a custom Node.js script. Verify your installation:

node -v

If Node.js is not installed, download it from the official Node.js website.

The build script takes two arguments:

npm run build:<browser> <version>

For example, to build for Firefox version 1.0.1:

npm run build:firefox 1.0.1

Or for Chromium-based browsers:

npm run build:chromium 1.0.1

The script will:

• Clean or create a version-specific folder inside dist/
• Copy the necessary files from src/ into that folder
• Copy the correct manifest for the selected browser

On success you will see:

✅ Build complete for firefox version 1.0.1. Files are in dist/privy.firefox.v.1.0.1/

The built files land in dist/, in a folder named for the browser and version — for example dist/privy.firefox.v.1.0.1/ or dist/privy.chromium.v.1.0.1/.

Load the folder as an unpacked extension (see section 2.2), or package it for submission to the relevant add-on store.

Privy/
├── src/ shared extension source
├── screenshot/ README screenshots
├── manifest.chromium.json Chromium manifest
├── manifest.firefox.json Firefox manifest
├── build.js custom build script
└── package.json

Licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.