FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

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General

What does "Aletheia" mean?

Aletheia (Greek: ἀλήθεια) means "truth" or "disclosure" — the state of not being hidden. It represents our goal of revealing the hidden history and context behind everyday language.

Is Aletheia free?

Aletheia has a free tier with generous daily limits — no account required. For heavier usage, a premium subscription is available via Stripe with higher rate limits and priority processing. See the User Guide for tier details.

What browsers are supported?

• Chrome 88+ (Manifest V3)
• Firefox 140+ (Manifest V3)

Edge and other Chromium-based browsers may work but are not officially supported.

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Privacy & Security

Does Aletheia track my browsing?

No. Aletheia only processes pages where you explicitly select and analyze text. It has no access to your browsing history or any page you don't interact with. For each analysis, we store the selected text, surrounding context, page URL, and page title. Analysis data is automatically deleted after 30 days. See our Privacy Policy for details.

Where is my data sent?

Selected text, surrounding context, page URL, and page title are sent to AWS Bedrock for AI processing. If you sign in with LinkedIn, your profile data (user ID, name, email, picture) is stored in our database until you delete your account. AWS Bedrock (Amazon and Anthropic) does not use your text for model training. All traffic is proxied through CloudFlare. See the Privacy page for the full third-party services list.

How long is my data stored?

• Analysis data: 30 days, then automatically deleted
• Account data (profile, billing): Until you delete your account or request erasure via DELETE /my-data
• Rate limit counters: Hours to days (auto-expire)

Does Aletheia sell my data?

No. Aletheia does not sell, share, or monetize user data in any way.

Why does Aletheia need the permissions it requests?

All browsers (Chrome & Firefox):

Permission	Why It's Needed
activeTab	Access the current tab when you invoke the extension
tabs	Detect page navigation for overlay lifecycle and content script injection
scripting	Execute content scripts to extract selected text and display overlays
contextMenus	Add "Explain with AI" to your right-click menu
storage	Save preferences, auth tokens, and domain allowlist locally

Chrome only:

Permission	Why It's Needed
identity	LinkedIn OAuth authentication flow
notifications	Display analysis completion notifications

Remote access: The extension communicates only with api.aletheia.study — no other remote servers.

The extension cannot see your browsing history or read pages you haven't interacted with.

How is my account secured?

Aletheia uses LinkedIn OAuth for sign-in — we never see or store your password. After authentication, a JWT token is issued and validated locally in under 1 millisecond. Tokens are signed with secrets stored in AWS Secrets Manager, with support for dual-secret rotation (zero-downtime key changes).

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Technical

What AI model does Aletheia use?

Aletheia uses three AI models via AWS Bedrock: Amazon Nova Micro for standard analysis, Anthropic Claude Haiku 4.5 for standard analysis, and Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6 for deep poetic and literary analysis. AWS Bedrock guarantees that none of these models train on your data.

How many security layers does Aletheia have?

Seven. Requests pass through CloudFlare DDoS protection, IP rate limiting, origin secret validation, JWT authentication, input validation, server-side sanitization, and AI content guardrails before reaching the model. See the Security page for the full breakdown.

Is Aletheia open source?

Yes! The full source code is available at github.com/martymcenroe/Aletheia under the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 license.

Can I self-host the backend?

The backend is designed to run on AWS Lambda. Self-hosting instructions are available in the Developer Guide.

Why are there two extension versions?

Chrome and Firefox both use Manifest V3 but have slightly different API surfaces (e.g., Chrome uses chrome.identity for OAuth while Firefox uses a tabs-based flow). We maintain separate builds to handle these differences.

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Billing & Subscriptions

How does billing work?

Premium subscriptions are managed through Stripe. You can upgrade via the extension or at aletheia.study. Stripe handles all payment processing — Aletheia never sees your card details.

What happens if my payment fails?

A grace period activates, giving you time to update your payment method. You won't be immediately locked out.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period.

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Troubleshooting

The analysis is taking too long

• Check your internet connection
• The backend may be under heavy load
• Try a shorter text selection

I'm getting an error message

• Refresh the page and try again
• Check that the extension is enabled
• Report persistent issues on GitHub

The extension icon disappeared

• Go to chrome://extensions/ (or about:addons in Firefox)
• Ensure Aletheia is enabled
• Try reinstalling the extension

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Contributing

How can I contribute?

See our Contributing Guide for information on:

• Reporting bugs
• Suggesting features
• Submitting code changes

I found a security vulnerability

Please report security issues privately using GitHub's Security Advisory feature. Do not create public issues for security vulnerabilities.

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Last updated: 2026-03-13 — Updated permissions (all 7 Chrome / 5 Firefox), AI models (3 named), license (PolyForm), Firefox MV3, data retention, third-party services.