Extensions / Kanji Translator

Kanji Translator privacy policy

Last updated: October 27, 2026

Kanji Translator is a browser extension that translates text between English and Japanese and shows the Japanese with its kana reading, romaji and the meanings of its kanji. This policy describes exactly what it does with your data.

The short version

• There is no account, and there are no analytics, trackers or cookies in the extension.
• Nothing runs until you ask. The extension does not read the pages you visit and sends nothing until you ask it to translate.
• The only content that leaves your browser is the text you choose to translate; like any server, ours also sees your IP address.
• Kana readings, romaji and kanji meanings are worked out on your device.
• In the Chrome Web Store privacy form this text is declared as “Website content”, because you can select it on any website. Your IP address is declared as “Location”: the server uses it only to apply the usage limits and stores it only as a salted hash that changes every day.

What is sent, and when

The extension talks to one server, the Kanji Translator server, and only when you ask for a translation: when you choose Translate with Kanji Translator in the right-click menu, press the shortcut (Alt+Shift+K, or ⌥⇧K on a Mac), or press Translate in the popup.

It sends the text (up to 500 characters) and the direction of the translation: English to Japanese or Japanese to English. It sends no install ID, no account details and not the address of the page. As with every request on the internet, the server also sees your IP address.

What the server does with it

• It passes the text, with instructions for the translation, to the AI model service that translates it. The service runs the GLM-4.5-Air language model and is reached through an API gateway. Your IP address is not passed to it.
• It does not store the text or the translation, and does not write them to its log.
• To enforce the free daily limit and to protect the service from abuse, it counts translated characters per IP address for the current day (UTC), plus one total for all users. The address is kept only as a salted hash that changes every day, never as the address itself. Counts for earlier days are deleted automatically when the first translation of a new day is counted. Per-minute counts are kept only in memory.
• The server runs on Cloudflare. As the hosting provider, Cloudflare processes every request to the server, including your IP address.

Nothing is sold, and nothing is used for advertising or for any purpose other than translating your text and enforcing the limits. The hosting provider's own policy: Cloudflare.

What never leaves your browser

• The pages you visit. The extension reads only the text you select, and only when you ask for a translation.
• Kana readings, romaji and kanji meanings. They are worked out on your device with a dictionary built into the extension.
• Your settings, the number of characters translated today and the state of the rating block.

What stays in your browser

• In the extension's storage (chrome.storage.local): whether you closed the “How it works” tip, the number of characters translated today, and the state of the rating block (the dates of up to five days on which you translated something, and whether and when you rated or closed it).
• In session memory (chrome.storage.session), cleared when you close the browser: the last text and its translation, text waiting for you in the popup when a page does not let the extension show the translation in place, and a technical note about adding the extension to tabs that were already open.

None of this is synced to other devices, and all of it is deleted when you remove the extension.

Permissions, explained

• contextMenus — to add Translate with Kanji Translator to the right-click menu when you select text.
• storage — to keep the items listed above in your browser.
• scripting — to start working in tabs that were already open when the extension was installed or updated, without reloading the page.
• offscreen — kana readings, romaji and kanji meanings are worked out in a hidden extension page on your device.
• Access to http://*/* and https://*/* (Chrome shows it as “Read and change all your data on all websites”) — to read the text you selected and show the translation card next to it, on every website. Until you ask for a translation, the extension adds nothing to the page and sends nothing.

Pages the extension opens

• After installation it opens a one-time welcome page, and after removal your browser opens a page that asks why you removed it.
• After you have translated something on five different days, the popup asks Is Kanji Translator useful? with five stars. Clicking 4 or 5 stars opens the extension's reviews page in the Chrome Web Store; clicking 1 to 3 stars opens a short feedback page. Not now hides the question for 30 days, and a second Not now hides it for good. The extension sends nothing when you click a star, and the address of the page it opens contains no information about you.
• The welcome, removal and feedback pages are ordinary web pages hosted on GitHub Pages and use standard, anonymous web analytics. GitHub Pages hosts them and Google Fonts provides the typeface; both receive your IP address and basic browser details when a page loads.
• Feedback you choose to submit on the removal page (a reason and an optional comment) or on the feedback page (a comment) is sent to the developer via Google Forms, and only when you press Send feedback or Send. It contains only what you pick and type; the page attaches no identifiers.
• The dictionary credit link in the popup opens the KANJIDIC project page on edrdg.org.

Changes

If this policy changes, the updated version will be published at this address with a new date above.

Contact

Questions? Open an issue on GitHub.

Chrome is a trademark of Google LLC. Kanji Translator is an independent project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Google LLC.