Developer kjhq just dropped "LinkedIn Unfiltered" on Hacker News, and honestly, it fills a void none of us knew existed. The Chrome extension translates corporate LinkedIn posts into what people are actually trying to say—no more deciphering "synergy" and "disrupting the space." One click, honest text.

How It Works

Scroll through your feed, encounter another post about "leveraging value-add frameworks," hit the Unfilter button. The AI translates it on the fly into blunt, readable prose. Users can choose between four personalities: Blunt, Sarcastic, Corporate (for when you want to match the energy), and Gen Z (because apparently that's a dialect now). There's also a "substance score" that rates posts 0-10 on how much they're actually saying versus how loud they shout it.

Auto-Translate and Theming

The extension's auto-translate feature triggers after hovering for five seconds—hands-free de-bullshitting. It follows LinkedIn's dark mode automatically, which is a nice touch since we're all doomscrolling at 2 AM anyway. No separate toggle to manage.

Setup Requires Your Own API Key

Here's where it gets interesting from a privacy standpoint: you bring your own AI backend. The extension supports Mistral, OpenRouter, or any OpenAI-compatible provider. Click the icon, drop in your API key, pick your personality, and you're cooking. Chrome installation involves downloading chrome.zip from the latest release, enabling developer mode at chrome://extensions, and dragging it onto the page. Firefox users will have to wait—addons.mozilla.org approval is still pending.

Vanilla JS, No Build Step

The stack is refreshingly simple: vanilla JavaScript, manifest v3, Chrome storage API. Zero dependencies, zero build process. kjhq even wrote a blog post about building it for those curious about the implementation details. MIT licensed, so fork away.

Privacy Considerations

Your API key lives in browser local storage and never leaves your device. Post content gets sent directly to whatever AI provider you configured—no middleman logging your LinkedIn rage-reading sessions. Nothing tracked, nothing sold. Of course, you're trusting your chosen provider with the posts you translate, so pick accordingly.

Key Takeaways

  • Free, open-source tool that fills a genuine need in our collective LinkedIn suffering
  • Supports multiple AI backends—you control where your data goes
  • Simple vanilla JS implementation makes it easy to audit or fork
  • Firefox support coming once Mozilla's review process completes

The Bottom Line

LinkedIn Unfiltered is the tool we deserve. Corporate-speak has infected every corner of tech, and having a browser extension that cuts through the noise with one click feels almost revolutionary. Grab it for Chrome while you wait for Firefox approval—just make sure you're using an API key you don't mind your translation requests touching.