How SeeNote works

Last updated: August 31, 2026

SeeNote asks you to install a browser extension and read securities filings through it. That deserves more than a promise, so this page shows the actual permissions, the actual click path, and how to check both yourself.

The permission model

These are the permission declarations from the extension's manifest.json, reproduced in full; only the line wrapping differs:

"content_scripts": [
  {
    "matches": [
      "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/*",
      "https://www.sec.gov/ix*",
      "https://www.sec.gov/ixviewer*"
    ],
    "all_frames": true,
    "js": ["content-script.js"],
    "run_at": "document_idle"
  },
  {
    "matches": ["https://maya.tase.co.il/*"],
    "js": ["maya-content.js"],
    "run_at": "document_idle"
  },
  {
    "matches": [
      "https://mayafiles.tase.co.il/ixbrl/*",
      "https://mayafiles.tase.co.il/translated_ixbrl/*"
    ],
    "js": ["ixbrl-content.js"],
    "run_at": "document_idle"
  },
  {
    "matches": ["https://data.fca.org.uk/*"],
    "js": ["nsm-content.js"],
    "run_at": "document_idle"
  }
],
"permissions": [
  "storage",
  "alarms",
  "contextMenus",
  "activeTab"
],
"host_permissions": [
  "http://*/*",
  "https://*/*"
]

What each line means:

Where SeeNote works

SeeNote reads three markets, and each one has its own way in.

SeeNote does not read Companies House statutory accounts. Companies House re-renders those filings as page images with no text layer, so there is nothing on the page for SeeNote to find, and it does not pretend otherwise.

What happens when you click a reference

You open a 10-K on sec.gov. The page is already fully downloaded by your browser; SeeNote waits until the document is idle, then parses it in place: it finds the notes to the financial statements, works out where each note begins and ends, and wraps every cross-reference like "see Note 12" in a clickable element. A Maya filing or a UK annual report open in the Reader takes the same path, run over a PDF's own text layer instead of a web page's DOM.

When you click one, SeeNote resolves the reference against the index it built and clones the note's content, the exact nodes already sitting in the page, into a popup next to the reference. No request is made. The popup is not a fetched copy, an excerpt, or a rendering of our version of the note; it is the filing's own DOM, duplicated in place. In the Reader, where the document is a PDF, the popup is the printed page's own pixels instead: the exact region of the page, cropped, never re-typeset. Close it and you are exactly where you left off.

Because everything operates on the page you already loaded, popups open instantly and keep working with your network disconnected.

You don't need a reference to reach a note. Press S (or click the on-page button) to open the notes index: a keyboard-navigable list of every note in the filing, in document order. Choose one and it opens in the same popup, cloned from the page in place, still without a request and still verbatim.

Marking a filing yourself

Reading is not only following references, so SeeNote also lets you keep what you found. Select a passage on an EDGAR page or a Tel Aviv iXBRL filing, or drag across a line in the Reader, and pick one of four colours; attach a note of your own if you want one. The mark is anchored to the filing's own text rather than to a pixel position, so it comes back where you left it the next time you open the document. Every mark collects in the sidebar's Highlights tab — filter them, jump back to the page, or copy them all out as text, each quote with your note beneath it. Marks are free on every filing, before and after the trial, and what they store — the quote, your note, the filing's title and address, and when you last changed it — is written to Chrome's local storage on that device and goes nowhere else.

What never leaves your machine

The privacy policy states this as policy; here it is as architecture:

Why there's no name on this site

SeeNote publishes no personal data about anyone, including whoever built it. That is the extension's privacy principle applied in both directions, not a hedge. The permissions above and the code they gate are the credentials; they are checkable, and a name is not.

Verify it yourself

If you find behavior that contradicts anything on this page, tell us at hello@seenote.co. That report outranks every other inbox we have.