Privacy policy

Last updated: 19 October 2026

ProtPeek does not operate a backend and does not include analytics, advertising, telemetry, user accounts, or profiling.

Article scanning

While the ProtPeek panel is open, the extension can inspect the active web page to detect PDB, UniProt, and AlphaFold identifiers. Detection is performed locally. Page text and article content are not uploaded.

Local structure files

Local PDB, CIF, mmCIF, and BCIF files are read and rendered locally. ProtPeek does not upload them. Structure and PNG exports are also generated locally before the browser saves the file.

Remote structures

When you explicitly open a remote identifier, ProtPeek contacts the official RCSB PDB services for PDB structures or AlphaFold DB for UniProt/AlphaFold models. The requested identifier is part of that network request. The provider may also receive normal web-request metadata such as your IP address, request time, user agent, and transport headers.

Storage

ProtPeek uses browser session storage to coordinate the active page and side panel. It may temporarily contain detected identifiers, a tab ID, a pending context-menu identifier, and an optional scan error. It is not used as a persistent history.

The white or black viewer background preference is saved in browser local storage on this device. It contains no article text or structure history and is not synced or transmitted.

The Zotero plugin saves the same display choice in a namespaced local Zotero preference, without article text or structure history.

To schedule an optional review invitation, the browser extension stores the first successful use date, the most recent active day, an active-day counter capped at five, the invitation count, a reminder date, and the dismissal preference locally. These values are not synced or transmitted and contain no identifiers, file names, article content, or page URLs. The invitation appears after at least seven days and five active days, at most twice with a 30-day interval. Opening the store review page or choosing “Don’t ask again” stops further invitations. The store’s own privacy policy applies when you explicitly open its review page.

Permissions

HTTP/HTTPS page access and the scripting permission are used for local article scanning. Context-menu access adds View in ProtPeek. Storage is used for session-scoped communication between extension components and local viewer background and review-invitation preferences. Chromium side-panel support is generated by WXT.

ProtPeek restricts extension-initiated structure-data connections to the official RCSB PDB and AlphaFold hosts.

Firefox classifies user-entered or selected structure identifiers under its searchTerms data category because those identifiers can be sent to the selected structure provider. ProtPeek does not use them for analytics or profiling.

Sharing and sale

ProtPeek does not sell personal data and does not share data with advertisers or analytics providers. Remote identifiers are disclosed only to the structure provider needed to fulfil the user's request.

The complete source code is public on GitHub.