Arun Gopidas

Three months. Two developers. One feature nobody used.

I knew it was bad when I checked the analytics and saw that the only person who used it more than once was me. And even I stopped after the second week.

Here's how I knew it was a waste of time. Not in hindsight. In the moment. I just ignored the signs.

The first sign: I couldn't explain it in one sentence.

I've been trying to make Termsy as useful as possible since the day we launched.

And Termsy is fundamentally and significantly better now. Here's why:

1. Higher Accuracy: Rebuilt from the ground up with a smarter algorithm. To be honest, looking back, I feel a little embarrassed by the old algorithm. It threw up way too many false positives and wasn't trained on enough real-world data. Over the last few weeks, I've been analyzing 200-300 ToS pages across categories to find patterns to improve the accuracy. I've been actively improving the algorithm, so it's only going to get better in the newer versions.

2. Introducing Proactive Nudges: To catch the fine print early. Two things happen now once you encounter a ToS page: 1) The icon in the extension bar lights up 2) A self-dismissing widget pops up that nudges you to investigate. I didn't want you to forget to check Termsy when you need it most. So now, it shows up to give you more clarity so that you don't agree to something blindly.

3. Introducing Right Click to Investigate: To check the fine print without opening the link. Brands have become smarter, instead of letting you read the agreement, they usually write "By signing up I've read the Privacy Policy and agree to the Terms and Conditions" and link their pages. An already long verbose ToS is now another click away, hidden away. With a simple right click, you can now scan the terms without navigating away from the page. This is an attempt to shift the balance of power slightly back toward the consumer ensuring critical information isn't buried behind pages and long walls of text.

4. Now needs more permissions: to power all the new features. To do all this, we need more permissions, primarly to show that self dismissing widget and to read the contents of the page you aren't on (for Right Click to Investigate). This means your extension may be turned off. Chrome does this after major updates. So just click the extension bar icon, go to "manage extensions" to re-enable Termsy and unlock the full power of the new version.

From the time Termsy was launched, I've made a lot of small updates to the extension.

Thought I'll share them here.

1. It now has a quick answers tab, that helps you understand terms in plain English. Simple yes/no answers to things that actually matter: who owns your data, auto-renewal, cancellation fees, account termination, binding arbitration, and whether you can sue. These are color coded as well, green for user-favourable and red for now

2. It also has a dark patterns tab, which is still in beta, but helps you understand if there are any dark patterns used on the page (things like a urgency timer, hidden opt-outs, confirmshaming, hidden costs and more)

3. Termsy icon on the extension bar has improved, it's greyed out by default but if you land on a ToS page, privacy policy or sign-up pages, it lights up.