Why a Browser That Watches Trackers Is Called Watchkeeper

On a ship, someone is always on watch. While the rest of the crew sleeps, eats or works below, one officer stays on the bridge, keeps a lookout and notes what passes. That person is the watchkeeper, and watchkeeping is still the word sailors use for the job.

The day is cut into watches of about four hours, so nobody has to stay alert for too long. Whoever has the watch looks out for other ships, lights and changes in the weather, and writes what they see in the log. The captain doesn’t have to stand there all night. The log says what happened.

A watchkeeper’s job is to look out and write it down.

The Same Job on a Web Page

That’s the job Watchkeeper does while you read. You get on with the page. It keeps a lookout on everything the page sends out and writes it in the panel: each other site that heard about your visit, each cookie, each key stored on your computer, each script that reads your device’s fingerprint. It doesn’t steer the ship, so it doesn’t block or change anything. It watches and keeps the log.

The name also has a pleasant turn to it. Trackers are the ones doing the watching, and Watchkeeper watches them back.

Family

Watchkeeper is the first of a small family. Unweb is planned as a browser where every visit is a first visit, built on the same core. Watchkeeper Plus, also planned, is a browser an AI assistant drives while you watch what it does. Both are still to come.