Privacy Policy

01 About This Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how the Chrome extension Solène — Living New Tab ("Solène", "the Extension", "we", "us") handles information when you install and use it. It applies only to this extension and to no other product.

Solène is published on the Chrome Web Store by the developer account sarrathi. By installing and using the Extension you agree to the practices described on this page. Questions can be directed to the address in Section 10.

02 Information We Collect

Solène does not operate a server and does not have user accounts. Everything the Extension keeps is written to Chrome's local storage (chrome.storage.local) on your own device:

• Display name — an optional first name you type in Settings so the greeting can address you. Stored locally; never transmitted.
• Appearance settings — 12/24-hour clock, seconds display, theme and sky preference, weather and focus-note toggles. Stored locally.
• Shortcuts — the name and URL of any link tile you choose to add to your new tab. Stored locally and never transmitted: shortcut tiles are drawn from a built-in icon set or from the site's initial letter, so no request is made to any icon or favicon service.
• Daily focus note — the short "what matters most today?" text you optionally write, stored locally with its date so it can be shown back to you that day.
• Approximate coordinates — a cached latitude and longitude, used only to request a local weather forecast. Stored locally and only when the weather feature is enabled. See Section 4.
• Manual location — if you prefer, a city name you type yourself instead of using device location. Stored locally.
• Licence and plan data — your Lemon Squeezy licence key, plan type, licence instance ID, trial start timestamp and last validation timestamp. Stored locally; the key is sent to Lemon Squeezy only to verify your purchase.

What Solène never collects

• Your browsing history, open tabs, or the content of pages you visit.
• Your search queries or anything typed into other websites.
• Cookies, keystrokes, form data, passwords or payment card details.
• Any personally identifying profile, contact list, email address or device fingerprint.

03 How We Use Information

• Settings and display name are read at startup to render your new tab exactly the way you configured it.
• Shortcuts are rendered as tiles on the new tab page so you can click through to sites you choose.
• The daily focus note is displayed back to you on the same calendar day and then falls away.
• Coordinates are used for the sole purpose of requesting a current weather condition and temperature for your area.
• Licence data is used only to determine whether Pro features should be unlocked and to re-verify an active purchase periodically.

None of this information is used for advertising, profiling, audience building, credit assessment, or resale. We do not sell or transfer user data to third parties for any purpose unrelated to the Extension's single purpose, and we do not use or transfer user data to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes.

04 Location and Weather

The weather display is off by default. It does nothing until you switch it on in Settings.

When enabled, Solène resolves your approximate location in one of three ways:

• Manual location (preferred). If you type a city name, that name alone is sent to Open-Meteo's public geocoding service to convert it into coordinates. No device location is accessed at all.
• Browser geolocation. If you allow it, Chrome supplies your device coordinates through the standard navigator.geolocation permission prompt. You may decline, and you can revoke the permission at any time in Chrome's site settings.
• IP-based fallback. If geolocation is unavailable or declined, Solène makes a single request to ipapi.co, which infers a coarse city-level location from your IP address. As with any web request, your IP address is visible to that service in the course of answering.

The resulting coordinates are cached locally so the forecast does not have to be re-resolved on every new tab. They are sent only to Open-Meteo to retrieve a forecast. They are never sent to us, are never associated with an identity, and are deleted from your device the moment you turn the weather feature off.

05 Data Storage & Retention

• All Extension data is held in chrome.storage.local on the device where it was created.
• It is not synchronised to other devices through Chrome Sync, and it is not backed up to us.
• It is retained until you change or clear it in Settings, or until you uninstall the Extension.
• Uninstalling Solène removes all of its locally stored data from your device.

You can edit or delete your name, shortcuts, focus note and location at any time from the Extension's settings panel. Disabling weather immediately clears the cached coordinates.

06 Third-Party Services

Solène makes network requests to the following services, and to no others:

We do not share your data with any other third party, and we do not sell data under any circumstances.

07 Chrome Permissions

Solène requests the minimum permissions its features require:

• storage — to save your settings, shortcuts, focus note, cached coordinates and licence status locally on your device.
• geolocation — to obtain approximate coordinates for the optional local weather display. Chrome asks for your explicit consent before this is ever used, and the feature is disabled by default.
• host permission: api.open-meteo.com — to fetch the weather forecast.
• host permission: geocoding-api.open-meteo.com — to convert a manually typed city name into coordinates.
• host permission: ipapi.co — IP-based location fallback when device geolocation is unavailable.
• host permission: api.lemonsqueezy.com — to validate a paid licence key.

08 Children's Privacy

Solène is a general-audience browser utility. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. Because the Extension has no server and no account system, no such information is transmitted to us in any case. If you believe a child has provided personal information through the Extension, please contact us so we can assist.

09 Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, the "Last updated" date at the top of this page will change. Material changes affecting how data is handled will be reflected here before the corresponding version of the Extension is published. Continued use of Solène after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

10 Contact