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Will 划词翻译 invade my privacy?

I released 划词翻译 in 2013 (see 划词翻译 milestones). Before the release of version 7.0 in 2020, the code of 划词翻译 was open-sourced on GitHub, the world's largest programmer website. Because of this, among the 350,000 users of 划词翻译, a large part of them are programmers. Even after version 7.0, if 划词翻译 does something that invades privacy, programmers have a way to find out.

Information sent by 划词翻译​

划词翻译 only sends the text you selected to the translation server. Unless you actively enable history or add the translation result to the favorites, 划词翻译 will not save the associated information of this text, such as the URL of the text you selected, the context of this text, etc. Unless you enable data synchronization, the history and favorites will only be saved in your browser and will not be uploaded to the 划词翻译 server.

The key you fill in will not be uploaded​

The key you applied for will only be saved in the browser, and will not be uploaded even if data synchronization is enabled. Although this way, you have to import the key every time you use 划词翻译 in a new browser, I think it is worth it to ensure the security of your key.

This is a bit inconvenient for people who use multiple browsers, but if I upload these keys to the 划词翻译 server for synchronization:

  • If someone suspects that I have stolen these keys, I cannot prove my innocence.
  • I cannot guarantee with 100% certainty that the 划词翻译 server will not be hacked.

Although you can use local encryption and decryption to save the ciphertext to the server, this will require users to set a secondary password locally, which further increases the complexity. But in fact, commonly used browsers generally do not exceed 4, so importing these keys, although troublesome, is only troublesome 4 times. All in all, not uploading the key is the best choice.