Rotten is a Google Chrome extension that keeps your browsing history from becoming rotten.
- Rotten deletes noisy / duplicate site visits as they're written (auth flows, search results, tracking-param duplicates, Cloudflare interstitials, and more).
- It also learns:
- Rotten prompts the user with standard Desktop Notifications to allow or deny anything from a site it hasn't seen before.
- URL scope is editable: a rule can cover the whole domain, or be narrowed to any text matched anywhere in the URL (a path, a query parameter value, and so on).
- If a domain (or a broader scope on it) already has a deny rule, add an allow rule with a more specific scope (a path, a query parameter, any matched text).
- More specific scope wins, regardless of existing rules.
- Allow or deny rules can also be added manually.
Built-in rules:
| Rule | Matches |
|---|---|
| Authorization / login keywords | URLs containing exact matches for the words "auth", "idmsa" (Apple), "login", "oauth", "signin", "sign-in", and "sso" are deleted from the browser history. |
| Bookmarked links | Any URL that exactly matches a bookmarked URL is deleted from the browser history. |
| Browser search results | URLs for searches on google.com or duckduckgo.com are deleted from the browser history. |
| Cloudflare redirection | Any page titled exactly "Just a moment..." whose URL also contains __cf_chl (Cloudflare's temporary "checking your browser" screen, not the real page underneath it) is deleted from the browser history. |
| GitHub | Search results, login/session pages, settings pages, and (within a repo) the edit, compare, and tree pages are deleted from the browser history. Everything else (bare profile pages, bare repo pages, file views, issues, pull requests, and invitations) is kept. |
| Google Docs & Drive | The first visit to a given Google Doc, Sheet, Slide, or Drive file/folder is kept; any later visits to the same item (even if the URLs have different tracking parameters) are deleted from the browser history. |
| Google service domains | Every URL on "accounts.google.com", "calendar.google.com", "chat.google.com", "mail.google.com", or "meet.google.com" is deleted from the browser history. URLs containing "drive.google.com" are treated differently - only the bare top-level homepage is deleted. Real links on "drive.google.com" are kept. |
| Profile page visits and post links (including company posts) are kept. All other URLs (feed, search, network browsing, and login pages) are deleted from the browser history. | |
| YouTube | The first visit to a given YouTube video is kept. Later visits to the same video (even if the URLs have different tracking parameters) are deleted from the browser history. |
Rotten also includes archive_chrome_history.sh: a standalone script that archives the Google Chrome history into a day-partitioned SQLite database separate from the history database in the app which allows your browsing history to survive past Chrome's 90-day retention window.
The easiest way to install Rotten is by downloading & double-clicking the .pkg from the latest release page.
The .pkg installs the signed .crx, updates.xml, and rotten-policy.mobileconfig to /Library/Application Support/Rotten.
To build your own version, load the unpacked extension in Google Chrome (requires Developer Mode):
git clone https://github.com/nonpunctual/rotten.gitThen chrome://extensions → enable Developer Mode → Load unpacked → select chrome-extension/.
The rotten-policy.mobileconfig Configuration Profile force-installs the extension via Chrome enterprise policy so it can run with Developer Mode off. To use, install the profile (System Settings → Profiles) & restart Chrome. After editing the extension, you can repack and bump the version with:
./repack.sh <version>The repack.sh handles extension build automation. It will reuse the rotten.pem file for extension signing to keep the id stable. If the key is missing, the script will generate a new .pem file.
Notes:
- To reload the extension to pick up the current code:
- Go to
chrome://extensions - Find the unpacked extension
- Click the reload icon (circular arrow) on its card
- To clear stale/conflicting storage:
- On that same card, click "service worker"
- In that console, type "allow pasting"
- Run:
chrome.storage.local.clear().then(() => console.log("cleared")) - Verify it's empty:
chrome.storage.local.get(null, console.log)- result should be
{}
- result should be