SafeTab Guard

About

SafeTab Guard helps protect you from websites that try to open unwanted tabs and popup windows through misleading buttons, fake download prompts, banners, overlays, and other deceptive click targets.

Instead of claiming perfect certainty, SafeTab Guard uses local on-device checks to decide whether a new tab or popup looks normal, unusual, or suspicious. It looks at recent click signals, opener relationships, navigation behavior, redirects, trusted-site settings, and short-term approvals you control.

Main features:

- Blocks suspicious site-triggered tabs and popup windows
- Watches for `about:blank` handoff and redirect-style popup traps
- Detects repeated burst opens from the same page
- Supports lenient, balanced, and strict protection modes
- Lets you trust a site, allow the next popup or tab, or pause protection on the current site
- Includes trusted context menu actions for opening links in a new tab or window through the extension itself
- Keeps a local event history on your device

How it works:

- A lightweight content script records recent click intent on normal web pages
- The extension service worker watches tab creation, updates, and navigation events
- A heuristic engine scores each new tab or popup as `ALLOW`, `UNCERTAIN`, or `BLOCK`
- High-confidence suspicious tabs can be closed automatically when enforcement is enabled

Privacy:

- All processing stays local in your browser
- No analytics
- No telemetry
- No remote processing of browsing data
- No browsing history or click data is sent to external servers

Important limitations:

- SafeTab Guard does not claim perfect scam detection
- Browser-native right-click “Open link in new tab/window” intent is not universally exposed to extensions
- Some unusual but legitimate workflows may still be flagged more often in strict mode