2026 nabbing - Chrome extension
Chrome extension tool critical design
your clipboard activity
nabbing is a Chrome extension that captures the transitory actions of copying and pasting. They are behaviors so routine that they are often unnoticed, yet are still sufficient, at scale, to profile and redirect a person's attention.
The extension routes this data to a built-in factory where users process their own clipboard histories, categorizing each captured unit across three dimensions: intention, content, and mood. In the act of extraction, the original context collapses and only the categories remain. The factory's processing stations then attempt to make sense of these decontextualized fragments, producing reports, predictions, and profiles from information that is fundamentally incomplete.
As an extension of the project, nabbing is presented as a participatory performance: participants install the extension and use the browser normally for two weeks, then arrive for a "first day at work". They process their accumulated data in person, in an office-like space, creating a shared experience of a tool that is otherwise private and solitary.