Scaredy Cat
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WHAT'S NEW

Every change to Scaredy Cat, written down.

We add a note here every time the extension changes, including the times we fixed our own mistakes.

CURRENT VERSION 2.1.2Follow along: RSS

What leaves your device today

Detection runs on your computer. This is everything the extension sends over the network, and anything new will be announced here first.

  • The title list and spoiler summaries

    Goes to
    scaredycat.app, every 6 hours
    Sends
    Nothing about you. The download has no cookies and no ID attached.
    Since
    Version 1.2

  • Pictures being checked

    Goes to
    The site already showing them, or YouTube’s image server for embedded YouTube videos
    Sends
    A second request for the same picture, without cookies. For an embedded YouTube video it is the video’s thumbnail. The check itself runs on your computer.
    Since
    Version 1.1

  • Reports you choose to send

    Only if you say yes
    Goes to
    Our report database, through scaredycat.app
    Sends
    The page and picture addresses, cut off before any ? or #, plus what we matched and how sure we were, your settings and version numbers, and your note. A report of missed horror includes the text next to the picture as its note. Your email is included only if you type it. Never the picture itself or your browsing history. Reports go through scaredycat.app, which passes them on to the report database without keeping a copy. The database deletes them after 6 months. The full list is at scaredycat.app/privacy.
    Since
    Version 1.3
EVERY RELEASE, NEWEST FIRST
Jump to a version
  1. New features#

    2.1.0: Horror videos, Shorts and ads on any site

    Calling your video a horror short is now a very reliable way to get Scaredy Cat to cover it.

    NEW

    • When a video’s own title says it is horror, such as “Horror Short Film”, “Analog Horror”, “creepypasta” or #horror, Scaredy Cat blurs it right away. Looser phrases such as “horror stories” still get a look at the picture first, so videos about bad days at work usually stay visible.
    • Scaredy Cat now also looks inside frames on a page. YouTube trailers embedded in an article and banner ads for horror films get blurred too.

    BETTER

    • Video cards on other sites, such as Dailymotion and Vimeo search results and trailer rows on news sites, now get their titles read the same way as on YouTube.
    • The channel name and description under a video now count as a hint. They can send the picture for a closer look, but they never blur a video on their own.
    • Some safe videos are blurred a little more often than before. In our tests this rose from about 1 in 100 safe videos to about 2 in 100, mostly true crime documentaries.

    FIXED

    • Scaredy Cat missed most horror videos in YouTube search results. A title that said “horror” only once was not enough for it to check the picture, and the titles of Shorts were not read at all. On the 19 video pages in our tests it now blurs about 8 in 10 horror videos. Before this update it blurred about 3 in 10.
    • Sponsored trailers that put words like “Only in Theatres” or “Get showtimes” next to the film’s name were sometimes left unblurred. They are now blurred like the film’s other trailers.
    • On YouTube, a new search made without reloading the page was still judged with the previous search’s settings. Each search is now judged on its own.
    FIXES TO 2.1

    2.1.2: A new icon and a privacy policy

    #
    • Better The extension icon is now the weary cat face from Twemoji, which is free to share. On a Mac the toolbar still shows Apple’s version, drawn from the Mac’s own emoji font.
    • Better The popup and the welcome page link to the privacy policy at scaredycat.app/privacy.
    • Fixed The message you see before sending your first note from the popup did not say that sending also turns on report sharing, or that the note’s category is included. It says both now.
    • Better The report sharing switch on the welcome page now lists everything a report can contain, including the text next to a missed-horror picture and your email if you add one. Reports are deleted after 6 months.
    • Better Scaredy Cat no longer writes status messages to the console of every page you visit.

    2.1.1: Credit for TMDB, and no tip link for now

    #
    • Better The popup and the welcome page now show the TMDB logo and notice. Scaredy Cat’s daily list of new horror titles comes from TMDB, and its terms ask apps to say so.
    • Better The welcome page no longer has a link to tip the person who makes Scaredy Cat. It is switched off while we check that tips fit TMDB’s rules for free projects.
  2. Big change#

    2.0.0: A new picture model

    Scaredy Cat has new glasses, and it finds the quiet, arty posters much easier to spot now.

    BETTER

    • Scaredy Cat now uses a different model to look at pictures. The licence of the old model only allowed research use, so it could not go in the Chrome Web Store. The new model’s licence allows that.
    • On pages that are already about horror, Scaredy Cat now catches about 8 in 10 modern horror posters in our test pictures. The old model caught fewer than half of them.
    • A picture with no title or other clue nearby is now blurred a little less often, and fewer safe pictures get blurred by mistake.
    • The download is larger, about 78 MB, up from about 26 MB, because the new model is bigger. Pictures are still checked on your computer, and no new information leaves it.

    FIXED

    • Family Halloween pictures, such as pumpkin photos and children’s Halloween films, were sometimes blurred by mistake. That now happens far less often.
    • When the text around a picture only weakly suggested horror, a calm-looking picture could cancel the blur, even when it was a real horror poster. This happened to about a third of the horror pictures in our tests. Scaredy Cat now cancels a blur only when the picture looks clearly safe, which happens to about 1 in 6 of them. As a result, some films that share a short name with a horror film may be blurred a little more often.
  3. New features#

    1.6.0: A short tour when you install

    The practice posters are made up, and the raccoon in the first one is a professional.

    NEW

    • Installing Scaredy Cat now opens a welcome page. It has practice pictures you can unblur, mark as not horror, or block yourself, so you learn the buttons before you need them.
    • The popup footer has a How it works link that opens the welcome page again.
    • The welcome page has the same switch for sharing reports as the popup. It stays off until you turn it on.
    • If you’d like to support the project, the welcome page links to our Ko-fi page.
    • The same tour is on our website at scaredycat.app/welcome, so you can try it before installing or send it to a friend.

    BETTER

    • After you click “This isn’t horror”, the button now reads “Thanks, noted”.
    FIXES TO 1.6 (3)

    1.6.3: Sponsored trailers on YouTube get blurred

    #

    Paying for the spot does not get you past Scaredy Cat.

    • Fixed Sponsored cards in YouTube search results and feeds were not blurred, because Scaredy Cat could not find their title. It now reads the ad’s headline and description, so a horror trailer ad is caught like any other video.
    • Fixed Other Mommy (2026) is now on the reviewed title list, so it is blurred on its name alone.

    1.6.2: Signed title lists and a safer report route

    #

    Scaredy Cat now checks the seal on every envelope before opening it.

    • Your data The title list and spoiler summaries that Scaredy Cat downloads every 6 hours must now carry our signature. A download that is unsigned or was changed on the way is ignored, and the last good copy stays in use.
    • Your data Reports you choose to send now go to scaredycat.app, which checks them and passes them on to our report database without keeping a copy. Until now the extension held the report database’s address itself, so anyone who found it could add fake reports.
    • Better Reports that can’t be sent right away wait on your computer and go out a few at a time, no faster than the server allows.

    See the code on GitHub: 08edf8d01fd154

    1.6.1: Lighter, and harder for pages to fool

    #

    Scaredy Cat had a security review and only hissed twice.

    • Better The picture check now starts only when a page has a picture it needs to look at, and it shuts down after 5 quiet minutes instead of 30.
    • Better Each picture is shrunk once before it is checked. On poster-heavy pages this cuts the picture check’s peak memory from about 250 MB to about 25 MB.
    • Better Pages without large pictures, such as your inbox, no longer load the horror title list at all.
    • Better The toolbar badge now counts the pictures that are hidden right now, so it goes down when you unblur one.
    • Fixed Opening a movie site started the picture check even when Scaredy Cat was turned off for that site. It now stays off.
    • Fixed A page could press the blur card’s buttons with a script. That let it reveal a hidden picture, turn on report sharing, or remove a picture you had blocked. The buttons now respond only to your own clicks and keys, and the card is sealed off from the page.
    • Fixed Allowing a title with a short name, such as Us, also let through pictures whose address happened to contain those letters. Allowing now matches the exact picture or title.
    • Fixed On IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, poster boxes that appeared after the page first loaded could stay blank. They now show as soon as their picture is checked.
    • Fixed A damaged title list from our website could have switched protection off. Each entry is now checked, and Scaredy Cat falls back to the list it shipped with.
    • Your data Web pages can no longer detect Scaredy Cat by looking for its files and fonts, or by reading the markers it used to leave on page elements.
    • Your data Pictures you choose to show are now remembered on this computer only. They used to sync to your Google account, and the list could grow until settings stopped saving.
    • Your data The picture check refuses addresses on your own computer or home network, so a page can’t use it to reach your router or other devices.
    • Your data Reports now trim picture addresses the same way as page addresses, stopping before any ? or #. Pictures embedded directly in a page are left out.
    • Your data Scaredy Cat asks Chrome for two fewer permissions.
  4. New features#

    1.5.0: You can see what changed

    Scaredy Cat now keeps a diary, and most of it is about LinkedIn.

    NEW

    • The popup now shows its version number. Click it to read what changed in the latest update.
    • Every change is also listed on scaredycat.app/changelog, including the updates from before we kept notes. We numbered those properly, which is why this version jumps from 1.1 to 1.5.

    BETTER

    • “Just tell me what happens” summaries now come from our website, so new summaries show up without waiting for an extension update.
    • When two films share a name, the year on the page decides which summary you get.

    YOUR DATA

    • The consent message for “Send a note” said it only sent your note and the extension version. It also sends the address of the page you are on, your sensitivity setting, our list and model version numbers, and your email if you type one. The message now says all of this. The consent sheet you see when reporting a picture left out a few of these too, and now lists them.
    • The title list now checks for updates every 6 hours instead of once a day, and it also downloads the spoiler summaries. Neither request carries anything about you, and both now explicitly refuse to send cookies.

    See the code on GitHub: d8c8749

  5. New features#

    1.4.0: New horror films arrive on their own

    Scaredy Cat has not seen any of these 1,500 new films and plans to keep it that way.

    NEW

    • New horror films are added to the list automatically, using film data from TMDB, so a release from last week is covered without an update.

    BETTER

    • A film added this way that has an ordinary name, like a single common word, is only hidden when the picture also looks scary. This keeps titles like “Companion” from blurring unrelated posts.

    YOUR DATA

    • The title list is now downloaded from scaredycat.app instead of GitHub. It is still a plain download that sends nothing about you.

    See the code on GitHub: 94f1a8f

  6. ON THE WEBSITE
    #

    The Spoiler Library

    Over 500 horror films, explained by someone who did not watch them.

    • The Spoiler Library on scaredycat.app explains what happens in over 500 horror films, starting spoiler-free and letting you choose how much to read.
    • Browse by shelf, search, or filter by scare level and by whether the dog makes it. Filters live in the page address, so you can share a view.
    • Every article was checked again against its sources before it went up, and dog status comes from Does the Dog Die.
  7. New features#

    1.3.0: You can report what Scaredy Cat missed

    Scaredy Cat now accepts tips.

    NEW

    • Right-click a picture and choose “Report missed horror”, or pick one from the popup, to tell us what we missed.
    • After you reveal something, a “This isn’t horror” link lets you tell us we got it wrong.
    • The toolbar icon shows how many things are hidden on the current tab.

    BETTER

    • Scaredy Cat now checks only what is on or near your screen, so long pages load faster.
    • The download went from 49 MB to 26 MB. It now needs Chrome 137 or newer.
    • Pictures are covered before they appear, so you no longer see a flash of the image first. A “Hide again” button puts the blur back, and the cards work with a keyboard and screen readers.

    FIXED

    • On IMDb, the blur sometimes covered only half of a trailer, and some trailer cards for a listed film were missed. Both are fixed.

    YOUR DATA

    • This is the first version that can send anything to us. Sharing is off until you say yes, and you can turn it off again in the popup. Reports are stored in our report database. They never include the picture itself or your browsing history.

    See the code on GitHub: 60a0ea66b87358859439f

    FIXES TO 1.3

    1.3.1: Reported pictures disappear right away

    #

    Forrest Gump is no longer considered a threat.

    • Better When you report a picture we missed, it is hidden straight away in every open tab, at any size, and stays hidden on this device. This works even if you choose not to share the report. “Allow” brings it back.
    • Fixed Trailer thumbnails for Forrest Gump on IMDb were blurred. When a page says a film is a drama or a romance, a picture alone can no longer cause a blur.

    See the code on GitHub: 6dd28884b43efb

  8. New features#

    1.2.0: It can tell when a whole page is horror

    If a website files something under Horror, Scaredy Cat takes its word for it.

    NEW

    • When a movie page labels a film as Horror, its poster is hidden, even for new films that are not on our list yet.
    • On pages filtered to the Horror genre, every poster is hidden.
    • The title list now refreshes itself once a day, so new films are covered without an extension update.

    BETTER

    • “Just tell me what happens” only appears for films we actually know. The generic joke versions are gone.

    FIXED

    • On YouTube, hovering over a blurred thumbnail played the trailer preview anyway. It no longer does.
    • On LinkedIn, one hidden post could cover every video in the feed, and some dark article images were blurred. On social feeds each post is now judged on its own.

    YOUR DATA

    • The daily title list was downloaded from GitHub, where the project’s code lives. The request sent nothing about you.

    See the code on GitHub: 594295e0fa70672bb8d2aa3b748c53a92048cd194540f0cabb9ed71a10af513

  9. ON THE WEBSITE
    #

    The first movie explainers

    Scaredy Cat reads the Wikipedia plot so you don’t have to watch the trailer.

    • scaredycat.app started publishing short pages that explain what happens in a horror film and how scary it is, starting spoiler-free.
  10. ON THE WEBSITE
    #

    scaredycat.app opens

    • scaredycat.app went live with a short tour of the extension and a waitlist for the free beta.
  11. New features#

    1.1.0: Scaredy Cat learns to look at pictures

    Freaky Friday was never in danger, but Scaredy Cat blurred it anyway until this update.

    NEW

    • When the words around a picture don’t settle it, Scaredy Cat now looks at the picture itself. The check runs entirely on your computer, and nothing is uploaded.
    • “Just tell me what happens”: for films we recognize, you can read a deadpan summary of the plot instead of looking at the poster.

    BETTER

    • A new design for the popup and the blur card. The card resizes to fit the picture, and tiny thumbnails show only the Scaredy Cat icon and a Show button.
    • One horror poster on a homepage no longer makes the whole page more likely to be blurred.

    FIXED

    • Before this version, Rotten Tomatoes was barely covered. The site builds its pages in a way our scanner could not see into, and only about 1 in 100 pictures there was checked.
    • The popup’s Allow and Show all buttons did not work until this version.
    • Freaky Friday, The Devil Wears Prada, Cape Fear and Monsters, Inc. were blurred by mistake. Words like “scary”, “devil” and “evil” now count for less on their own.

    See the code on GitHub: a005a107c60f84ca6d66ac141a2556680c9942d7f771bc30a

  12. Big change#

    1.0.0: Scaredy Cat is born

    Built by someone who reads the ending of a horror film before deciding not to watch it.

    NEW

    • Scaredy Cat blurs pictures, thumbnails and trailers tied to about 590 known horror films. Click “Show anyway” whenever you want to see one.
    • Hidden trailers are paused and muted, including ones embedded from YouTube, and pick up where they left off if you reveal them.
    • From the popup you can turn protection on or off, choose how sensitive it is, or pause it on one website.
    • Scaredy Cat stays off video calls and work tools such as Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Slack, Discord and Loom.

    FIXED

    • On launch day, some logos and small icons were blurred, and an early attempt to stop autoplay broke the Loom recorder. Both were fixed the same day.

    YOUR DATA

    • Everything ran on your computer. This version sent nothing anywhere.

    See the code on GitHub: 68771d5f055750dbd978979dea5a08ffa01a9ae63216bb4a782a44b535add68

    FIXES TO 1.0

    1.0.2: LinkedIn posts about AI are left alone

    #

    Two horror films called Afraid and Companion turned out to share a vocabulary with tech LinkedIn.

    • Fixed Posts about AI on LinkedIn were being blurred because they matched the horror films “Afraid” and “Companion”. Those titles now need more evidence before anything is hidden.

    See the code on GitHub: 333797d

    1.0.1: Faster, with 35 new films

    #

    The Lord of the Rings spent a day under a blur, which the hobbits did not deserve.

    • Better Pages load faster with Scaredy Cat on.
    • New Added 35 recent and upcoming horror films, including Longlegs, The Substance, Sinners and Heretic.
    • Fixed The Lord of the Rings and No Other Choice were blurred by mistake.
    • Fixed Some trailers were paused but still visible, and trailers that loaded a few seconds late were missed. They are now covered.

    See the code on GitHub: 9fe01cd2a50dc8

How the numbers work

Every update gets a version number. The digit that goes up tells you what kind of update it is.

  1. 3.0: Big change

    A change to the deal. You’ll read about it here before it ships.

  2. 2.1: New features

    Something new you can see or use.

  3. 2.1.3: Fixes

    A fix or a speed-up.

Not using Scaredy Cat yet?

Install the extension and horror gets blurred before you see it. Updates arrive on their own, and each one gets a note on this page.

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