DarkSight

Real-time dark pattern detector, manipulative UI countermeasure shield, and native ad blocker.

🛡️ DarkSight is an intelligent browser protection shield that detects deceptive design patterns (dark patterns), shields you from psychological manipulation, and blocks intrusive ads across the web in real time. Built upon 7 landmark academic research papers (Mathur et al., Schaefer et al., AidUI, DP Sentinel), DarkSight continuously analyzes web elements to uncover hidden costs, artificial urgency, fake discounts, and manipulative button layouts. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📖 HOW TO USE DARKSIGHT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1️⃣ INSTALL & PIN • Click "Add to Chrome" and pin the DarkSight shield icon to your toolbar. • It starts protecting you immediately with zero setup or configuration required. 2️⃣ CHOOSE YOUR COUNTERMEASURE Click the DarkSight icon in your toolbar to choose how deceptive elements appear: • 🔴 Highlight & Explain (HLE) [Default]: Highlights deceptive countdowns and buttons in glowing red boxes. Hover your mouse over any highlighted box to see an instant explanation of the psychological trick. • 🟣 Hide Deception (HD): Automatically removes and hides countdown timers, artificial stock warnings, and fake urgency tickers so you can shop in peace. • 🟢 Fair UI (Switch): Replaces manipulative marketing text with calm, honest language (e.g., replaces "Hurry! Only 1 left!" with neutral "In stock"). 3️⃣ AD BLOCKER & YOUTUBE SHIELD • Native Network Blocker: Powered by Chrome's Declarative Net Request (DNR) with official uBlock filters to stop banners, popunders, and trackers with 0% browser slowdown. • YouTube Video Ad Defuser: Automatically skips video ads in 0ms while keeping comments, notifications, and menus 100% functional. • Whitelist Toggle: Turn ad blocking off for any specific website with a single click in the popup if you want to support a creator. 4️⃣ ZERO-LOGIN AI INTELLIGENCE • Works automatically out of the box with Cloud AI (zero registration, zero API keys). • Optional: Connect your local Ollama instance (DeepSeek-R1 / Qwen2.5-VL) in the "AI Models" tab for 100% offline, on-device privacy. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✨ CORE CAPABILITIES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1️⃣ REAL-TIME DARK PATTERN DETECTION • Urgency & Scarcity: Detects countdown timers, expiring offers, "only 2 left in stock", and percentage claimed badges. • Fake Discounts: Identifies exaggerated crossed-out prices and artificial price anchoring. • False Hierarchy & Misdirection: Flags visually skewed buttons (e.g., giant glowing "Accept All" vs. tiny faint "Decline"). • Obstruction & Forced Action: Spots difficult cancellation processes and coerced newsletter agreements. • Social Proof: Flags questionable claims like "140 people are looking at this item right now". 2️⃣ THREE DEFENSIVE COUNTERMEASURES Choose how DarkSight protects you via the extension popup: 🔴 Highlight & Explain (HLE): Outlines deceptive elements in glowing red boxes with instant hover explanations. 🟣 Hide (HD): Automatically removes and hides manipulative elements from the page. 🟢 Switch (Fair UI): Replaces deceptive urgency text with fair, neutral phrasing. 3️⃣ HIGH-PERFORMANCE NATIVE AD BLOCKER • Powered by Declarative Net Request (DNR) with full uBlock Origin Lite ruleset parity. • Eliminates banners, popunders, click-jack traps, and Google AdSense without slowing down your browser. • Real-Time YouTube Ad Defuser: Automatically accelerates and skips YouTube video ads and removes empty placeholder boxes. • Facebook Sponsored Post Filter: Cleans promotional feed units and right-rail ads. 4️⃣ DUAL-ENGINE AI INTELLIGENCE • ☁️ Zero-Login Cloud AI (Default): Works 100% out-of-the-box with zero accounts, zero API keys, and zero configuration. • 💻 Local Ollama Engine: Connect your local GPU (DeepSeek-R1, Mistral, Qwen2.5-VL) for complete, 100% offline, on-device privacy. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔒 PRIVACY & TRANSPARENCY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Zero Tracking: We do not track, collect, or log your browsing history. • Zero Data Monetization: We never sell or share user data. • Open Source: Full source code is open and verifiable on GitHub. GitHub Repository: https://github.com/tashfinn/DarkSight