Your privacy is our priority. Here's exactly how Magneto handles your data—spoiler alert: we don't.
Magneto is a 100% local-only browser extension. Everything happens on your device:
When Magneto detects a magnet link on a whitelisted website, it stores: the magnet URI (including info hash, display name, and trackers), the source URL where it was found, the collection timestamp, and any metadata extracted from the link itself. When a site-specific adapter is available, we also extract enhanced metadata from the page (like file size, seeders, leechers, and category information). All this data is stored in your browser's local storage area.
Your approved website patterns (like https://example.com/*) are stored locally in your browser. Magneto only scans pages matching these patterns. No information about non-whitelisted sites is ever collected or stored.
Simple preferences like whether collection is currently enabled/paused and display options. These are basic boolean flags and UI preferences only.
Zero collection of names, email addresses, IP addresses, user IDs, or any other personally identifiable information. There's no user account system, no authentication, nothing.
We don't log which websites you visit (even whitelisted ones), what time you visit them, how long you stay, or any browsing patterns. The content script only looks for magnet links and related torrent metadata on whitelisted pages—nothing else. Page content is processed locally and immediately discarded; only the extracted magnet links and metadata are stored.
No analytics services, no crash reporting, no performance monitoring, no usage statistics, no A/B testing, no feature flags from a server—absolutely nothing. The code contains zero network requests.
No device fingerprinting, no OS detection, no screen resolution, no hardware specs, no installed fonts, no timezone—nothing that could identify your device.
All data is stored using your browser's local storage API. This stores data on your device only and is isolated per-browser profile. It never syncs to any cloud services.
We explicitly use local-only storage. Your magnet links stay on your computer and are never backed up to any cloud servers or synced across devices.
You have full control over your data. Delete individual magnet links, clear your entire stash, or uninstall the extension—your data is instantly and permanently removed from storage.
Export your collected magnet links to TXT, JSON, or CSV formats at any time. The export happens locally in your browser using the downloads permission—no server upload involved.
Modern browsers require extensions to declare permissions upfront. Here's exactly why Magneto needs each one and what we actually do with them:
storagePermissionWhy we need it: To persist your collected magnet links, whitelist configuration, and basic settings between browser sessions.
What we actually do: Use the browser's local storage API to read/write data to your browser's local storage. All operations are performed locally on your device.
What we never do: Access the browser's sync storage or transmit any stored data to external servers.
tabsPermissionWhy we need it: To check the current tab's URL against your whitelist and enable opening the dashboard interface.
What we actually do: Read the current tab's URL to determine if the current page matches your whitelist patterns. This is used by the content script to decide whether to scan for magnet links.
What we never do: Read tab content, monitor your browsing history, or track which tabs you have open. We only check URLs against your local whitelist.
downloadsPermissionWhy we need it: To enable exporting your magnet link collection to local files (TXT, JSON, CSV formats).
What we actually do: Generate export files from your locally stored data and trigger browser downloads to save them to your Downloads folder. All file generation happens in-browser.
What we never do: Download content from external sources, access your existing download history, or upload files anywhere.
sidePanelPermissionWhy we need it: To provide a convenient side panel UI where you can browse and manage your magnet link stash.
What we actually do: Register a side panel interface that displays your locally stored magnet links with search, filter, and delete capabilities.
What we never do: Access data from other extensions or websites through the side panel.
Content Scripts(http://*/* and https://*/*)Why we need it: To inject a content script that can scan web pages for magnet links and extract relevant metadata.
What we actually do: The content script checks if the current page's URL matches your whitelist using minimatch pattern matching. If it matches, it uses a MutationObserver to detect magnet links in the DOM. When a site-specific adapter is available (e.g., for popular torrent sites), we parse additional page content to extract enhanced metadata like file size, seeders, leechers, upload date, and category information. This parsing happens entirely locally in your browser, and the page content is immediately discarded—only the extracted magnet links and metadata are stored.
What we never do: Run on pages that don't match your whitelist. We don't read form data, passwords, cookies, or transmit any page content anywhere. The page parsing is strictly limited to extracting torrent-related metadata (file sizes, seeder counts, etc.) to enhance your magnet link collection. No browsing history, personal data, or unrelated page content is ever collected or stored.
Magneto makes zero network requests. None. The extension code contains no fetch(), XMLHttpRequest, or any other network API calls.
No third-party integrations: No analytics platforms, no error tracking services, no CDNs, no external fonts, no social media widgets—nothing that could phone home.
No external dependencies at runtime: All code runs locally in your browser. While we use open-source libraries during development, they're bundled into the extension and don't make any external calls.
You can verify this yourself by opening your browser's developer tools (F12), going to the Network tab, and monitoring traffic while using Magneto. You'll see zero requests originating from the extension.
Because Magneto collects zero data and makes zero network requests, this privacy policy is unlikely to ever change in a meaningful way. However, if we need to update it:
All changes to this policy are tracked in our public GitHub repository, so you can see exactly what changed and why.
Since Magneto is 100% open source, you can review every line of code to verify these privacy claims. If you have questions or concerns, feel free to open an issue on GitHub.
Don't trust, verify. All code is available for inspection.