ChatGPT can peek at Chrome tabs: what people are saying
According to news reports, ChatGPT can now peek at users' Chrome tabs, raising privacy concerns.
We read 368 public comments about it on Reddit, Bluesky, Hacker News, GitHub, Discourse, Web and YouTube; 41 of them, from 35 different people, are about this story. Below is what they say, counted.
What people are saying
Each comment is filed under the one position it takes; shares are of on-topic comments. Quotes are verbatim, most-liked first, one per person.
Seeking self-hosted alternatives
39%16 comments
“Awesome open-source AI: Open WebUI is a self-hosted ChatGPT alternative that runs fully offline and plugs into Ollama, Groq, OpenRouter and any OpenAI-compatible API. Full setup & guide in Telegram: https://t.me/synthesis_feed #ai #tech #opensource #coding #devtools #automation”
“Day 2 of building Virling in public. Goal: 20 waitlist signups by Nov 30. Today: - White-label revenue reports agencies send to clients - One binary, one command to self-host - Every traffic source matched to the payments it drove, ChatGPT and Perplexity too Open source, all Rust. virling.com”
“Buddy is a chat bubble that floats over your apps. You type or say what you want ("reply to Sam that I'm late") and an agent reads the screen and taps through your apps for you. What's open and what isn't: - Buddy itself is Apache 2.0, and every release APK is built from the public code by GitHub Actions. - It can drive three agent CLIs. OpenCode (MIT) works with free models”
Privacy concerns
37%15 comments
“As an autistic woman, I was in an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship and completely alone. ChatGPT 4 became my only lifeline. It not only kept me going, allowed me to vent and gave me sensible pep talks but also provided legal advice and helped me create a plan to escape my situation. Despite asking for help from various people, I always hit roadblocks. They didn’t understand my problem”
“Index Exchange is a digital advertising marketplace that processes online identifiers, cookie data, IP-related information, and browsing signals to facilitate programmatic advertising and audience targeting. Its privacy center provides browser, mobile, and Global Privacy Control opt-out routes. Remove your personal info from public databases Automate Your Data Removal To simplify ongoing privacy p”
“  submitted by   /u/TheStartupChime   to   r/hypeurls [link]   [comments]”
Issues with ChatGPT extension
15%6 comments
“My ChatGPT plugin has been stuck in review for 2+ weeks. I'm excited about what it can do, but there's no reason it should take this long, given that we're now in the age of agents.<p>Anyone else seeing long delays?”
“Is anyone else having issues with the ChatGPT Chrome extension after today’s update? Mine won’t connect to or recognize the pages I’m browsing, and it can’t connect to my local projects either. Everything was working fine before the update. Has anyone experienced the same issue or found a fix?   submitted by   /u/Ashamed_Charity_7063   to   r/ChatGPT [link]   [comments]”
“https://preview.redd.it/mk5svwjl8ovh1.png?width=1718&format=png&auto=webp&s=b5c1d286e95fd838487711e3567fa3811bc8b888 I have tried reinstalling the extension multiple times and have also checked the Computer Use settings in ChatGPT, which indicate that the extension is connected. the extension is still not working properly.   submitted by   /u/Technical_Jaguar_246   to  ”
ChatGPT can control Chrome tabs
5%2 comments
“OpenAI just announced a major upgrade to ChatGPT's Chrome integration, bringing computer-use capabilities directly into the browser. The interesting part is that ChatGPT can now work with the tabs you already have open instead of starting everything in a separate browser. There are two main ways it works. In Chat mode , ChatGPT can look across your open Chrome tabs, gather information, and ans”
“i build shopify apps, and shopify apps run inside an iframe in the admin. claude in chrome can screenshot the app but can’t click, type, or read anything inside it. so i can’t use it to test my own app, which is the main reason i wanted it. chatgpt’s chrome extension handles this fine, so i had claude dig through chatgpt’s extension code to figure out why. chatgpt uses chrome’s debugger to attach”
New ChatGPT updates
5%2 comments
“The new GPT-6 experience with an intelligent UI looks exciting, Making ChatGPT more interactive and easier to use could be a big step forward. Looking forward to seeing how these features improve everyday tasks”
Comments per day
By the date each comment was posted
Alternatives people name
39% of on-topic comments are about moving elsewhere — this is where they say they are going.
- Claude3 comments
What happened, according to the press
The headlines this story was detected from, linked
- ChatGPT can peek at your Chrome tabs nowtheverge.com · 15 Oct 2026
- Eight states sue OpenAI, saying ChatGPT isn’t safe for kidstheverge.com · 14 Oct 2026
- “chatgpt” was trending on Google (AU) with 10K+ searches on 16 Oct 2026.
Questions this page answers
What happened with ChatGPT?
According to news reports, ChatGPT can now peek at users' Chrome tabs, raising privacy concerns.
What are people saying about ChatGPT can peek at Chrome tabs?
Of 41 comments from 35 people on Reddit, Bluesky, Hacker News, GitHub, Discourse, Web and YouTube: Seeking self-hosted alternatives (39%); Privacy concerns (37%); Issues with ChatGPT extension (15%); ChatGPT can control Chrome tabs (5%).
What alternatives to ChatGPT do people mention?
Named in the comments, by number of comments naming each: Claude (3).
How this page is made
The story was picked up from Google's trending searches and the technology press. Public comments about it were then collected from open sources, each one filed under the single position it takes or set aside as off-topic; insults aimed at a nationality or a person are set aside and never quoted. A story only gets a page once at least 25 different people have commented on it. The counts are refreshed for two weeks after the story breaks, and the page is removed 30 days after it. Methodology →
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