CouchTube
Privacy policy
What the extension can access
The extension requests permission to run on www.youtube.com pages only. On those pages it reads the title, channel, duration and progress of the video that is playing, the lists of suggested or searched videos (title, channel, thumbnail, link), and it presses player buttons on your behalf (play, pause, seek, volume, speed, captions, fullscreen, like, skip ad, autoplay). It also uses the browser's tab and window APIs to switch to the YouTube tab, open a search or video you picked, and put the window in fullscreen. It does not access your Google account, cookies, passwords, browsing history, other websites or files.
What passes through the relay server
To connect your phone and your browser, both sides open a connection to a relay server. The relay matches them with a random room code and forwards messages between them. The messages are:
| From the phone to the browser | From the browser to the phone |
|---|---|
| Commands such as play, pause, seek to 1:23, volume 60%, speed 1.5×, and the text you type in the search box on the phone. | The current video's title, channel, thumbnail link, progress and player state, plus lists of suggested or searched videos so you can pick one. |
The relay keeps this data in memory only for as long as it takes to forward it (milliseconds). It has no database and writes no logs of message contents. Room codes exist only while a session is active and are deleted a few minutes after the browser disconnects.
What we do not collect
No personal information, no account, no email address, no analytics or tracking scripts, no advertising identifiers, no watch history, and none of the video or audio itself (which plays on your computer directly from YouTube, as it always has). We do not sell or share data with anyone, because we do not have any.
Technical data the server sees
Like any web server, the relay sees the IP address of connecting devices to deliver the connection. Standard server logs (timestamp, IP address, request path, no message contents) may be kept by the hosting provider for a short period for security and abuse prevention.
Local storage
The extension stores its settings (the relay address and whether it is paused) and the current pairing code in Chrome's extension storage on your computer. The phone page stores nothing. Removing the extension deletes its storage.
Self-hosting
CouchTube is open source (MIT). You can run the relay yourself so that your commands never touch our server; the address is configurable in the extension popup.
Children
CouchTube is not directed at children under 13 and collects no personal information from anyone.
Changes and contact
If this policy changes, the new version is published on this page with an updated date. Questions: open an issue at github.com/moumbou/couchtube/issues.