Why I built ChHeader

ChHeader, by KahWee Teng. No ads. Local profiles. Open source.

ModHeader’s ad injection is the main reason I built ChHeader. I want a header editor to change the headers I ask it to change. I don’t want it adding ads to my browsing.

This isn’t a new complaint. In an October 2023 discussion, a user reported ads appearing on Google and Bing after enabling ModHeader, then disappearing when they disabled it. Another reported MaxAI ads in Google results. Those are contemporaneous user reports, not a test I ran against the current version.

That was enough to put me off. A tool I might give an authorization header to needs to stay focused on the job I installed it for.

ChHeader edits request and response headers in Chrome. Profiles stay in local storage. There’s no account, advertising, or analytics in the extension.

Header changes use Chrome’s declarativeNetRequest API: ChHeader saves rules, and Chrome applies them to matching requests. The extension does not need to read and rewrite page content to change a header.

I kept the defaults narrow: new and imported profiles start off, and a profile with no URL rules changes nothing. Applying headers to all sites requires an explicit rule.

Writing it myself doesn’t make it secure. I’ve tested it with real localhost requests and documented the results in TESTING.md. It doesn’t add encryption to local storage, and exported profiles can contain secrets; the privacy policy explains the limits.

If you have a small requirement like this, consider building your own tool. Read what it does, test it, and maintain it. If ChHeader suits you, use it or fork it. I’d welcome a review of the permissions and header rules.

Watch the one-minute demo to see request and response headers applied to a localhost test.

Source and downloads are on GitHub. The Chrome Web Store submission is still in preparation.