Using BlurFirst

Getting started

1. Install BlurFirst from the Chrome Web Store (or load it unpacked for development).
2. Pin it to your toolbar so it’s one click away.
3. On any web page, click the BlurFirst icon and choose Start blurring — or press Ctrl/⌘ ⇧ Y. A small control bar appears.
4. Pick a gesture, blur what’s sensitive, then start your screen share.

BlurFirst starts with a 2-day free trial, then $5/month. You activate it with a license key — no separate account needed to use it.

Gestures

• Box — choose Box, then drag a rectangle over anything. It frosts over instantly and stays locked to that content as you scroll. Click a box to remove it.
• Element — choose Element, hover to highlight (blue outline), click to blur a single element. Click it again to reveal.
• Panic — blur the entire page instantly, for the moment something unexpected appears mid-share.
• Clear — remove every blur on the current page.
• The control bar — drag it by the handle to move it out of the way, or focus the handle and use the arrow keys. Press Esc to hide it. Your blurs stay in place when the bar is hidden.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Toggle blur mode — Ctrl/⌘ ⇧ Y
• Panic blur the whole page — Ctrl/⌘ ⇧ H
• Hide the control bar — Esc
• Move the bar — focus its handle, then ← ↑ → ↓ (Shift for fine steps)

Change any shortcut at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

Browser support

Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi and Opera are fully supported today.

Firefox and Safari builds are in progress.

BlurFirst works the same on any screen-sharing tool — Zoom, Google Meet, Loom and others — because the blur is rendered into the page, so whatever captures the page captures the blur.

Entering a license key

After you buy Pro, your license key appears on the confirmation page and is emailed to you.

1. Click the BlurFirst icon → Account / license.
2. Paste your key and click Activate.
3. That’s it — Pro features unlock on this device.

Each key activates on a limited number of devices. To move Pro to a different machine, open the account screen and Deactivate a device to free a slot — or manage devices from your web account.

Per-site auto-apply (Pro)

Your saved blurs re-apply whenever you re-open BlurFirst on a site. You can also have them re-apply automatically on load:

1. Open the popup on the site you want.
2. Turn on Auto-apply here.
3. Grant access to that site when your browser asks.

Turn it off any time from the same toggle. BlurFirst only ever requests access to sites you explicitly enable.

Troubleshooting

• “BlurFirst can’t run on this page.” Browser pages (chrome://) and extension stores can’t be scripted by any extension. Open a normal web page.
• A blur didn’t come back after reload. Re-open BlurFirst on that site and your saved blurs return; turn on auto-apply to have them come back automatically on load.
• A box shifted after a big layout change. Boxes anchor to the content beneath them and track normal scrolling and re-layout; a drastic change can still move one. For absolute certainty, use Element blur.
• My key won’t activate. Check for typos. “Device limit reached” means you should deactivate another device first. If you’re offline, reconnect and try again.

What it can’t do

BlurFirst is a browser extension, so it can only affect what’s inside a browser tab. It honestly cannot:

• Blur native apps, other windows, or your whole desktop. (A desktop app that does this is on the roadmap.)
• Automatically detect sensitive data — blurring is manual today. Detection is a planned Pro feature.
• Run on browser internal pages or extension store pages.

Within the browser, though, the blur is real pixels in the page — so it holds up on every screen-share and recording.