Privacy policy: Show IMDb Ratings on Streaming Services
Last updated: 2026-11-05
This extension shows IMDb user ratings on title cards while you browse
Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, Apple TV, Disney+, Paramount+ and Tubi,
and, if you switch it on in the settings, Letterboxd.
It works the same in Chrome and Firefox. It has no accounts, no analytics and no server of its own. Everything below
runs in your browser.
What the extension stores
All of this stays on your device, in the browser’s extension storage and
IndexedDB, and is removed when you uninstall the extension:
- The ratings database: a copy of IMDb’s public ratings data (titles,
years, ratings, vote counts) that the extension downloads from IMDb and
builds in your browser. It contains no information about you.
- Stored answers: for each title you have scrolled past, the rating that
was found (or that nothing was found), with a timestamp, so it does not
have to be looked up again.
- Settings: where ratings come from (the local database or OMDb only),
how often the database refreshes, whether OMDb is in use (the Use OMDb
box) and which extra scores are on, and, if you entered one, your OMDb
API key. Settings are
kept in the browser’s synced extension storage, so if Chrome sync (or
Firefox Sync with add-ons included) is on they follow your profile to
your other devices through your Google or Mozilla account, as with any
extension’s settings.
What leaves your browser
- To IMDb (datasets.imdbws.com): when you click Update now, and on the
schedule you chose in the settings (by default the ratings file weekly
and the full title list monthly; both can be set to run less often or
only when you click), the extension downloads IMDb’s public data dumps.
The request carries no information about you beyond what any download
carries (your IP address). With “OMDb only” chosen, nothing is downloaded
from IMDb.
- To OMDb (omdbapi.com): only if you enter an API key, and then in one
of two ways. With the local database (the default) and Use OMDb ticked,
titles the local database does not have are looked up at OMDb. With
“OMDb only” chosen, every title is looked up at OMDb, since there is no
local database. In either case the extension sends that title’s name
(and, where the site provides it, its year and whether it is a movie or
series) together with your API key, so OMDb can answer; each title is
sent once and the answer remembered. If you also tick any of the “Also
show” boxes (Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, awards, the IMDb rating per
OMDb), then for each title whose
preview, banner or title page you look at (and, with “On cards too”, each
title card you scroll past), the extension sends that title’s IMDb ID
with your key, once a month at most. OMDb’s own privacy policy applies to
those requests. Without a key, or with Use OMDb unticked while using the
local database, nothing is ever sent to OMDb. In Firefox, turning OMDb on
also asks you, through Firefox’s own prompt, to allow the extension to
send website content (these title names); until you allow it, nothing is
sent to OMDb.
- To Netflix (netflix.com): Netflix’s episode cards (rows like “Hooked
from the First Episode”) don’t say which show they belong to. For each
such card, once, the extension asks Netflix for that episode’s public
page, signed out (without your Netflix cookies), and reads the show’s ID
and name from it. On a profile in a language written in another script
(Korean, say), it asks the same public page once for each title whose
name on the card is in that script, to read the title’s English name,
which IMDb is far more likely to know. That is the same page anyone can
open; it tells Netflix nothing beyond what browsing Netflix already does.
Nothing else is sent anywhere. The extension does not send your browsing
activity, your watch history, the pages you visit or anything you type to
anyone, including the developer. It does not read anything on the streaming
sites other than the title names, years and movie/series type shown on the
cards, banners and preview panels it decorates.
Where the extension runs
Only on the eight streaming services above, on Letterboxd once you tick it
under Sites (the browser asks you to allow letterboxd.com first), and on
any address you add yourself under Sites, for a country’s store or a site
that moved. An added address is allowed through the browser’s own prompt,
for exactly that address, and the extension then runs its usual script
there. It never asks for access to all websites, and it never runs on a
site you did not tick or add; removing the address or unticking the site
gives the permission back.
Data sharing and sale
No data is sold, shared with third parties or used for advertising. The
only third parties that receive anything are IMDb and OMDb (and Netflix,
for its own public episode pages), as described above, and only to do what
the extension does.
If this policy changes, the new version will be published at the same
address and the extension’s store listing will link to it. Questions:
open an issue at https://github.com/Lwolf12/show-imdb-ratings/issues.
IMDb is a trademark of IMDb.com, Inc. This extension is an independent
project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by IMDb, OMDb,
Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Warner Bros. Discovery, Apple, Disney, Paramount, Tubi
or Letterboxd.