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Local Privacy Firewall-blocks PII and secrets before ChatGPT sees them

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OP here.I built this because I recently caught myself almost pasting a block of logs containing AWS keys into Claude.The Problem: I need the reasoning capabilities of cloud models (GPT/Claude/Gemini), but I can't trust myself not to accidentally leak PII or secrets.The Solution: A Chrome extension that acts as a local middleware. It intercepts the prompt and runs a local BERT model (via a Python FastAPI backend) to scrub names, emails, and keys before the request leaves the browser.A few notes up front (to set expectations clearly):Everything runs 100% locally. Regex detection happens in the extension itself. Advanced detection (NER) uses a small transformer model running on localhost via FastAPI.No data is ever sent to a server. You can verify this in the code + DevTools network panel.This is an early prototype. There will be rough edges. I’m looking for feedback on UX, detection quality, and whether the local-agent approach makes sense.Tech Stack: Manifest V3 Chrome Extension Python FastAPI (Localhost) HuggingFace dslim/bert-base-NER Roadmap / Request for Feedback: Right now, the Python backend adds some friction. I received feedback on Reddit yesterday suggesting I port the inference to transformer.js to run entirely in-browser via WASM.I decided to ship v1 with the Python backend for stability, but I'm actively looking into the ONNX/WASM route for v2 to remove the local server dependency. If anyone has experience running NER models via transformer.js in a Service Worker, I’d love to hear about the performance vs native Python.Repo is MIT licensed.Very open to ideas suggestions or alternative approaches.

HN · launched Dec 9, 2025 · 111 upvotes (top 9%) · 0 views

Niche: ai api gateways and proxies · 336 launches, 7 in the last 7 days ▼ -46% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Security
  • Compliance & governance
  • Prosumer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

Yes It is a client-side browser extension that intercepts text input fields or paste events and masks regex-matched API keys, tokens, and PII before transmission.

Discussion

20 comments analyzed.

Competitors mentioned: GitGuardian, SecureStore, Pihole, Windsurf

Concerns raised: Agent can circumvent restrictions by running commands that output sensitive data to stdout, Environment variables expose credentials when decrypted into memory, Difficult to audit/inspect sensitive data in terminal/local agent contexts, Browser-level solution is stopgap, not proper service-level protection, Future browser changes may break manual security settings

Feature requests: Terminal/environment variable equivalent for credential protection, Windsurf plugin version, Granular permission controls within projects, Browser extension to load unpacked addons easily

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 272 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #25 of 273 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 41 days after the earliest competitor.

The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.