Credibility Meter
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dominion Solutions LLC Launches Credibility Meter, a Free Browser Extension Built to Protect Vulnerable Internet Users From Scams and Manipulative Content
Inspired by a real neighbor's real losses, the open-source Chrome extension flags manipulative rhetoric in real time without collecting a single byte of user data.
[SMYRNA, DELAWARE], August 26, 2026 - Dominion Solutions LLC today announced the launch of Credibility Meter, a free, open-source Chrome extension designed to help people recognize the rhetorical tricks used by scam sites, predatory advertisers, and misleading content before they act on them.
The idea began close to home. Mark, founder of Dominion Solutions, watched a neighbor in his 70s repeatedly get drawn in by products he didn't need and, on more than one occasion, hand money over to people with no intention of delivering anything in return. It wasn't a matter of carelessness. The content was built to look credible to anyone who didn't already know what to look for.
"We got tired of watching it happen to someone we care about," said Mark, founder of Dominion Solutions. "He's one of the sharpest people we know, but this stuff isn't designed to fool careless people. It's designed to fool anyone. We wanted to build something that puts the warning signs in plain sight instead of leaving people to spot them on their own."
How It Works
Credibility Meter scans the page a user is currently viewing for rhetorical and structural patterns that credible sources tend to avoid, including:
- Manufactured urgency ("act now," "limited time")
- Medical overreach ("cures cancer," "detox and flush")
- Empty hype ("revolutionary," "game-changing")
- Vague appeals to authority ("studies show," "experts say" with no named source)
- Testimonial spam ("I lost 30 lbs in 10 days")
- Sales-funnel manipulation (pressure-based guarantees, misused disclaimers)
The extension assigns the page a letter grade and displays the specific phrases it flagged, in context, so the reasoning is never hidden behind a black-box score. A toolbar badge shows the grade at a glance while browsing.
Dominion Solutions is direct about what the tool does and doesn't claim to do. "The grade isn't a truth verdict," said Mark. "A high grade doesn't mean a page is correct, and a low grade doesn't mean it's wrong. It means the page is or isn't using patterns that correlate with low-credibility content. It's a prompt to slow down and read more carefully, not a replacement for judgment."
Privacy by Design
Credibility Meter is opt-in only and performs all analysis locally, on the user's own device. No data is collected, stored, or transmitted, and the extension requires only two browser permissions: storage, to remember the user's on/off preference, and activeTab, to read the page currently open. There are no user accounts, no analytics, and no backend server of any kind. The full source code is publicly available under the GPLv3 open-source license.
Availability
Credibility Meter is available now, free of charge, on the Chrome Web Store
A Firefox version is currently in development, with more details to be announced.
To support Dominion Solutions' continued development of tools like this one, visit https://dominion.solutions/products
About Dominion Solutions LLC
Dominion Solutions LLC is a custom software and consulting firm based on the Delmarva Peninsula, providing custom software development, networking and infrastructure services, and SaaS product development.
Media Contact
Mark Horninger
[email protected]
484-475-8550
