VIBRARY

A privacy-focused browser extension that lets you rate videos and build playlists — across websites, without needing accounts or relying on history.

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🖼️ Preview

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🎯 Overview

VIBRARY (short for Video Library) is a lightweight browser extension for Chromium browsers like Chrome and Brave.

It lets you keep track of videos you watch, rate them, and organize them into playlists — all without using browser history, cookies, or platform accounts.

It works on any site that supports Chrome's Media Session API or has detectable video elements.

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✅ Features

• Create playlists across websites
• Rate videos (1-5 stars) and filter by rating
• Edit video details - Change titles and URLs after saving
• Thumbnail preview - See multiple frames from videos on hover
• Auto-cleanup - Automatically remove old history items
• Blacklist sites - Prevent specific domains from being tracked
• No sign-in required — skip account creation
• No reliance on cookies or browser history
• Works fully offline — all data stays on your device
• Export/Import - Backup and restore your library
• Clean dark popup UI
• Built with Manifest V3 for Chromium browsers

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📦 Installation

From Release

1. Go to the Releases page
2. Download the latest .zip
3. In Chrome or Brave:
   • Visit chrome://extensions/
   • Enable Developer Mode
   • Click Load unpacked and select the unzipped folder

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🚀 How It Works

Video Detection

VIBRARY uses two methods to detect videos:

1. Media Session API - Captures metadata like title, artist, and thumbnail from sites that support it
2. Direct video element detection - Listens for playing video elements as a fallback

Duplicate Prevention

• Videos are identified by their page URL
• If the title changed (e.g., you edited it), the existing entry is updated

Thumbnail Capture

• Automatically captures video frames while you watch
• Stores up to 10 thumbnails per video for preview on hover
• Works on sites that allow cross-origin access to video content
• Continues capturing when tab is active (pauses when minimized)

Storage System

VIBRARY uses a dual storage system:

• History Storage (historyVideos) - All watched videos
• Library Storage (libraryVideos) - Only videos added to playlists

This ensures playlist videos are never accidentally deleted during cleanup.

Data Structure

Each video entry contains:

{
  id: "vid_timestamp_randomstring",
  title: "Video Title",
  url: "https://example.com/watch?v=123",
  website: "Example",
  favicon: "https://example.com/favicon.ico",
  thumbnail: "data:image/jpeg;base64,...",
  thumbnailCollection: [
    { time: 15.5, thumbnail: "data:image/jpeg;base64,..." },
    // ... more frames
  ],
  watchedAt: 1234567890,
  rating: 0, // 0-5 stars
  artist: "Channel Name", // if available
  album: "Playlist Name"  // if available
}

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🛠️ Configuration

Auto-Cleanup

• Set in Settings → Auto-Cleanup
• Options: Off, 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 365 days
• Only removes videos from history that aren't in any playlist
• Videos in playlists remain in both the playlist and library storage
• Runs hourly when enabled

Blacklist

• Add domains to prevent tracking (one per line)
• Supports subdomains (e.g., example.com blocks sub.example.com)
• Toggle on/off without losing your list

Export/Import

• Export creates a JSON backup of all data
• Import merges with existing data (won't overwrite)
• Supports migration from older VIBRARY versions

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🔒 Privacy & Security

Local Storage Only

• All data stored in chrome.storage.local
• Nothing sent to external servers
• No analytics or telemetry

Permissions Used

• storage - Save your video library
• unlimitedStorage - Store thumbnails without limits
• activeTab - Detect videos on current tab
• scripting - Inject video detection script
• <all_urls> - Work on any video site

Incognito Mode

• Works in incognito with extension allowed
• Data still saved locally (not tied to incognito session)
• Persists across browser restarts

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💡 Tips & Tricks

Navigation

• Click video title or thumbnail to open in new tab
• Search by title or website name
• Sort by date (recent first) or rating
• Filter by star rating or unrated videos

Managing Large Libraries

• Use search to filter by title or website
• Sort by date, rating, or website
• Filter by star rating or unrated videos

Thumbnail Quality

• Some sites block thumbnail capture (CORS policy)
• Thumbnail capture may be limited on cross-origin videos
• Preview shows multiple frames captured during viewing

URL Handling

• Always saves the page URL, not the video file URL
• Handles YouTube, Vimeo, and most video sites with Media Session support
• Works with embedded videos that use Media Session API

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🐛 Known Limitations

1. Thumbnail capture may not work on all sites due to CORS restrictions
2. Background tabs pause thumbnail capture to save resources
3. Some sites may show generic thumbnails if they block canvas access

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🔧 Technical Details

File Structure

manifest.json    - Extension configuration
background.js    - Service worker for cleanup and lifecycle
content.js       - Video detection and thumbnail capture
popup.html       - Extension UI
popup.css        - Styling
popup.js         - UI logic and data management

Browser Compatibility

• Chrome 88+
• Brave
• Edge (Chromium)
• Other Chromium-based browsers

Performance

• Thumbnails compressed to JPEG at 70% quality
• Maximum 400px width for storage efficiency
• Cleanup runs in background without affecting browsing

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📩 Support

Questions, ideas, or bug reports? Email apphazardstudios@gmail.com

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🔮 Future Ideas

• More sorting and filtering options
• Bulk operations (rate multiple, add to playlist)
• Custom thumbnail selection
• Video notes/comments
• Share playlists (export format)

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📄 License

VIBRARY is licensed under the GPL 3.0 License.

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