Your topics are yours.

The short version

• Everything stays on your device. Your topics, your own words and your settings live in your browser on your computer, and nowhere else.
• Nothing about you is sent to us. Alcove has no account, and the Chrome extension makes no network requests at all. This website counts visits, with nothing that says who you are (below). The only thing we ever hold is an email address, if you choose to join the waitlist.
• Nothing is kept or counted. Not what you read, not what was hidden, not even how many.

What Alcove reads, and why

To keep a post out of view, Alcove has to read it. On the pages you visit, it reads the words of posts, stories, comments, video titles, captions, hashtags and image descriptions as they appear on the page, and checks them against the topics you chose.

That check happens on your computer, in the moment. The words are not stored, logged or sent anywhere, and Alcove forgets each post as soon as it has decided.

Alcove never reads what you type, and it never runs on sign-in, password or checkout pages.

What Alcove keeps

Only your choices: which topics are on, your own words, and whether Alcove is on. They are saved in your browser’s own storage on this computer, so they hold between visits. They are not synced to other devices.

What Alcove never does

• Build a profile of you, or of your topics.
• Sell, share or rent anything, because it has nothing to sell.
• Show advertising, or follow you from site to site.
• Tell anyone what you hid, or that you hid anything at all. Not the sites you use, not us.

Chrome permissions, in plain words

Storage

To save your choices on this computer.

Access to web pages

Alcove works wherever you read, so it needs to read the words of posts, stories and comments on the pages you visit to keep the ones you chose out of view. It reads them on your computer, keeps nothing and sends nothing. It asks for nothing else.

The Android app

The same promise: your topics, words, history and saved pages stay on your phone and are never backed up. The app is also a browser, so here is everything that leaves the phone, when, and to whom.

Searches

Go to the search engine you chose, as in any browser.

Translate

Only when you tap it, and Alcove asks first: the page’s address goes to Google Translate, which shows the page in your language.

Search by voice

Only while the mic is open: your phone’s own speech service turns what you say into words. Alcove keeps no recording.

History

Stays on the phone. Before a page is kept, Alcove checks its title against your topics and words, and a page about one is never kept. Private windows keep nothing, and you can clear it any time.

Ads and trackers

Stopped on the phone, from a list built into Alcove. Nothing about the pages you visit is sent anywhere to check them.

Cookie banners

Hidden, or refused where the banner offers it. Cookies are never accepted for you.

Site icons

Each site shows its own icon, kept on your phone. For a site you add or save before you’ve opened it, Alcove opens its front page out of sight, with no scripts, just long enough to get the icon.

Private windows

Their own cookies and storage, deleted when you close them.

Safe Browsing

Android’s own web view checks the addresses of pages with Google to warn you about dangerous sites, as Chrome does. Alcove leaves this on to keep you safe.

Permissions

The internet, to load pages. The microphone, asked for the first time you search by voice. The camera, the microphone and your location, given to a site only when it asks (for a call or a map, say) and you say yes, and to that page only. Notifications, asked for once, the first time music or a video keeps playing after you leave Alcove, so you have play and pause on the lock screen.

An iPhone app will follow, with the same promise.

If you join the waitlist

Joining is the one time Alcove asks for anything about you, and only if you choose to. Your email address is kept by Buttondown, the service that sends our emails, and used for one thing: telling you when Alcove reaches Android and iPhone. No tracking pixels, no link tracking, and it is never shared or sold.

That email has a link to leave, and leaving deletes your address. You can also write to eoinfr7@gmail.com and we will remove it.

This website

To learn whether the site is helping people find Alcove, it counts three things: a page being opened, the download being clicked, and someone joining the waitlist. With a page, it notes the site you came from (its name, never the full address) and any campaign tag in the link.

These counts go to our own small server at e.alcoveblock.com, which keeps only that list and passes it to Mixpanel, the service we read them in, along with your country. Your IP address is passed on only in a scrambled form that changes every day, so we can spot one address sending a great deal, but not tell whose it is or follow it from one day to the next. Your IP address itself, your browser and your email address are never passed on.

There are no cookies and nothing is saved on your computer, so a visit can’t be linked to your next one. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, nothing is counted at all.

The sites themselves

When you use Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit or any other site with Alcove, you are still using their services, and their own privacy policies apply to what you do there. Alcove is not affiliated with any of them.

Everyone, any age

Alcove collects nothing about anyone. It is suitable for every age, and it is a good fit for a family computer.

Changes

If this ever changes, the new version will be posted here first, with its date. Last updated 2 November 2026: the website now counts visits, as set out above.