Frequently asked questions

Shadow Browser is a Windows browser that excludes its own window from screen capture. You browse normally, but screen recorders, share tools, and remote viewers capture an empty desktop where the window sits. People use it for private sessions on company PCs, video calls, interviews, remote support, and streaming. Access is a free 1-day Trial or a paid Premium membership.

Yes — that is a common use case. Open personal banking, email, or other private sites in Shadow Browser so they stay off corporate screen shares, meeting recordings, and many remote-view tools that use the Windows capture path. Always follow your employer’s acceptable-use policy; the product hides the window from capture, it does not bypass company rules or endpoint security.

Anyone whose screen gets shared or recorded: developers on managed machines, people on Zoom/Teams calls, interviewees, streamers, freelancers on client PCs, and anyone receiving remote IT support. If a window should stay visible to you but absent from the capture feed, that is the product.

Create an account on this site, then open the Download page. It offers the build for your system automatically — an .exe installer on Windows, or a .dmg you drag into Applications on macOS. When the app opens, sign in with the same email and password you used here.

On Windows: version 2004 or newer, or Windows 11, on a 64-bit PC. On macOS: 11 Big Sur or newer, with a single build for both Apple silicon and Intel. Interview mode additionally needs microphone access and permission to capture system audio.

There is a macOS build, and it is a full browser with interview mode included. One important limit: capture exclusion is a Windows feature. On macOS 15 Sequoia and newer the system composites every window before capture, so the window does appear in screen shares and recordings — use the Mac build for the browser and interview copilot, not for hiding. There is no Linux, iOS, or Android version.

Use the same email and password as your website account. The app checks your membership with the server each time, and it never saves your login session to disk — closing the app signs you out.

The Trial gives you 24 hours of access with every privacy feature unlocked. Interview mode is included, but capped at 3 answers per interview — enough to try the spoken format, Chunk mode, and auto-scroll. It is granted automatically the first time you sign up, once per account. During the Trial the app also ends your session every 5 minutes and returns you to the sign-in screen.

That 5-minute session limit is part of the free Trial. Any Premium plan removes it, so your session stays open until you close the app or your membership expires.

No. The Trial is once per account and it stays marked as claimed afterwards, so a new Trial cannot be issued on the same account.

There are three Premium plans: $20 for 1 month (30 days), $45 for 3 months (90 days, $15 per month), and $120 for 1 year (365 days, $10 per month). All of them include the same features — only the duration differs.

Yes. A purchase extends from your current expiration rather than from today, so nothing is lost if you renew early. If your access has already lapsed, the new period starts from the moment the payment is confirmed.

Yes, at any time. Premium time is added on top of the Trial time you have left. The 5-minute session limit and the 3-answer interview cap both stop applying as soon as the payment is confirmed.

The app stops granting access. If you are signed in when it lapses, the app notices within about a minute, shows a notice, and closes the session. Your local browser profile and saved site logins stay on your PC, so renewing restores everything.

Yes — interview mode is part of the app for any active membership, including the free Trial. On Trial you get 3 spoken answers per interview; after that the app asks you to upgrade. Premium removes the answer cap and the 5-minute session limit, which is what you want for a real interview.

That cap applies on the free Trial (and any non-Premium plan). Each interview session can produce up to 3 spoken answers — only answers that appear on screen count; an unused prefetch does not. Premium removes the limit entirely so you can ask as many times as you need in a real call.

Sign in, open your dashboard, and choose a plan. You are redirected to a Cryptomus checkout page where you pick a coin and send the payment. Once the network confirms it, your access is extended automatically — no code to enter.

Payments run through Cryptomus, so you can use any coin and network it offers at checkout — commonly USDT, BTC, ETH, LTC, TRX and others. You choose the coin on the payment page, and the amount is converted from the USD price.

Not at the moment. Cryptocurrency through Cryptomus is the only payment method available.

Usually a few minutes. The wait is mostly blockchain confirmation time for the coin and network you chose. Cryptomus notifies us the moment the payment is final, and your expiration date updates right away — reload the dashboard to see it.

Each invoice stays valid for one hour. If it lapses before you pay, go back to your dashboard and start the checkout again to get a fresh invoice and address.

First give it a few minutes and reload your dashboard, since the update happens only after the network marks the payment final. Underpaying an invoice can also leave it unpaid. If the payment shows as complete on Cryptomus and your dashboard still has not moved, send us your order ID and the transaction hash through the contact page.

Crypto transfers cannot be reversed automatically, so payments are treated as final. If something went wrong with an order — a double payment or access that never activated — send us your order ID through the contact page and we will sort it out.

Your order history is tied to your account, and the current membership state is always shown at the top of the dashboard with the plan, expiration date, and time remaining.

The app sets a Windows display-affinity flag on its own window that tells the system to leave it out of captures. Recording and screen-share tools that use the standard Windows capture path receive frames without the window in them, while your own monitor shows it normally.

Tools that capture through the standard Windows APIs — the usual screen recorders, screenshot utilities, and meeting or remote-desktop share features. It cannot hide from a phone camera pointed at your monitor, or from hardware capture devices that sit between the GPU and the display.

Yes. An opacity slider dims the whole window, and click-through mode lets your mouse pass to whatever is behind it, so the browser can sit over other work without getting in the way. Both can be toggled with hotkeys.

Yes, ten global hotkeys that work even when another app has focus. The defaults are Alt+' to hide or show the window, Alt+T for click-through, Alt+[ and Alt+] for opacity, Alt+R to set a capture area, Alt+S to copy that area as an image, Alt+C to copy the text inside it, Alt+I to switch between interview and browser mode, Alt+G to open ChatGPT, and Alt+/ for settings. On macOS every Alt is Option. Inside an interview session, Space asks for an answer and Enter steps to the next chunk. All ten globals can be rebound in Settings.

Interview mode turns the same window into a live interview copilot. You save an interview first — job title, company, the job description, and your resume — and during the call it transcribes both your microphone and the other side's audio. When you press Space it drafts a spoken-format answer (how you would actually say it out loud, not a written essay), using your saved brief as the context. Press Alt+I to switch in and out; the browser window itself does not change size or position.

No. Nothing is shown until you ask for it — press Space or click Ask, and one spoken-format suggestion appears, replacing the previous one. Turn on Chunk in the nav bar to get the answer one spoken piece at a time, with Enter advancing to the next piece. Leave Chunk off and long answers auto-scroll at roughly reading pace (~130 WPM) so you can keep your eyes up. Other interview tools typically dump written paragraphs or bullets with no chunking or reading-pace scroll.

Like speech. Shadow drafts answers you can say out loud — hedges (“Yeah, so…”, “right?”), real numbers from your resume, and a natural finish — not STAR bullet essays you have to rewrite mid-call. Chunk mode and reading-pace auto-scroll exist so you can deliver that spoken line without staring down at a wall of text.

Microphone access for your own speech, and system-audio access to hear the other side. On macOS the system asks for Screen Recording permission before it will share system audio, so grant that and restart the session if the transcript shows nothing from the other side. You also need to be signed in — transcription and answers run through your account.

Those tools are mostly browser overlays or Chrome extensions — useful for answer suggestions, but they typically surface written essays or STAR bullets, and they can still appear when an interviewer asks for full-screen share. Many also push credit packs or expensive annual plans. Shadow Browser is a capture-excluded desktop browser on Windows with interview mode built in: dual-channel live transcript, resume and job-description grounding, spoken-format answers you can say out loud, Chunk mode and reading-pace auto-scroll (which the others do not offer), and flat crypto pricing from $20 a month. See the comparison table on the homepage for a side-by-side.

Yes. Each account gets its own browser profile stored locally on your PC, which keeps cookies, site logins, and the last page you visited. Your Shadow Browser sign-in itself is not stored — only the browsing profile is.

Use the Forgot password link on the sign-in page. If the email is registered you will receive a reset link. You can also start a reset from the app's sign-in screen.

Your membership follows your account rather than a specific machine, so you can install the app on another PC and sign in there. Each PC keeps its own local browsing profile. Keep your credentials private — anyone with them can use your remaining access.

Your account email, your membership expiration and plan, and a record of the orders you place. Browsing data stays on your PC in the local profile — history, cookies, and pages visited are never uploaded.

Yes. Write to us from the email address on the account through the contact page and ask for deletion. Remaining membership time is forfeited when the account is removed, so use it up first if you can.

That message means the account has no active membership. Sign in on this website to claim your free Trial automatically, or buy a Premium plan from the dashboard. Once the expiration date is set, sign in again in the app.

Your membership period has ended. Open your dashboard and buy a Premium plan to extend it, then sign in again in the app — access resumes as soon as the payment is confirmed.

Check that the email and password match your website account and that the password is at least 6 characters. If you just registered, confirm your email first when a confirmation message was sent. An active internet connection is required, since membership is verified with the server on every sign-in.

A blank or missing page almost always means the Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime is missing or outdated — install the Evergreen runtime from Microsoft and restart the app. If it still fails, confirm you are on Windows 10 version 2004 or newer.

Capture exclusion needs Windows 10 version 2004 or newer, so first confirm your Windows build. Also note that a phone camera or a hardware capture device between GPU and monitor records what the screen physically shows and cannot be excluded.

Describe the problem here in the chat first — most answers are already covered. If you need a human, use the contact form and we will reply by email. Write from the address on your account and include your order ID when it relates to a purchase.