BlurScreen App vs BlurWeb App: Which One Do You Need?

BlurScreen went live on 1 January 2022, and the first question from BlurWeb users was the obvious one: how is it different? Short answer: BlurWeb is for the web, BlurScreen is for the screen. The longer answer is below, with a two minute demo of each so you can see it rather than read about it.

The one line difference

BlurWeb App is a browser extension. It hides sensitive information on a webpage: an email column in a dashboard, a revenue number, a customer's name in a support ticket. It only sees what is inside the browser tab.

BlurScreen App is a desktop app for Mac and Windows. It puts a blur over any rectangle on your screen, regardless of which app is underneath. Slack, Finder, a terminal, a second browser, all of it.

BlurWeb App: blur inside the browser

You click an element on the page and it blurs. Or you draw a rectangle over an area and everything under it blurs, and the blur stays pinned to that spot as the page scrolls. Turn on Keep Blur and the same elements stay blurred every time that page loads, so a dashboard you share weekly is safe without redoing anything.

It works on Chrome, Edge, Firefox and other Chromium browsers, and there is a free Safari version. Because it lives in the browser it cannot blur the URL bar, tabs, or anything outside the page.

BlurScreen App: blur anywhere on the screen

You draw a rectangle anywhere on your screen and it blurs whatever is under it. Move a window into that spot and it is blurred too. It is the answer for the things a browser extension cannot touch: the browser's own address bar, a chat app on the side, a folder of client names on your desktop, a code editor.

It runs on Mac and Windows only. There is no phone or browser version.

Side by side

	BlurWeb App	BlurScreen App
Runs as	Browser extension	Desktop app
Blurs	Elements and areas on a webpage	Any rectangle on the whole screen
Blur follows the content	Yes, pinned to the page	No, pinned to a screen position
Remembers blurs per site	Yes (Keep Blur)	No, per session
Can blur the address bar and tabs	No	Yes
Can blur other apps	No	Yes
Platforms	Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari	Mac, Windows

Which one should you use

Pick BlurWeb if the sensitive stuff is inside web pages: analytics, admin panels, CRMs, inboxes, spreadsheets in the browser. It is more precise, the blur moves with the page, and Keep Blur means you set it once.

Pick BlurScreen if you need to hide something that is not a web page, or if you share your whole screen and want one blur that covers a corner no matter what is there.

Plenty of people run both. BlurWeb handles the pages, BlurScreen covers the rest of the desktop.

Other tools for safer screen sharing

Screen sharing in a call is stressful because you never know what will pop up. These are the three apps built to fix that:

• BlurWeb App: hide anything on a webpage in one click, a specific text block or a drawn rectangle, and it stays put.
• BlurScreen App: hide anything on the screen by drawing a rectangle over it.
• QuickPresent App: one click before a call hides desktop icons, swaps the wallpaper, and silences notifications.

FAQs

Q: Can BlurWeb blur the browser's address bar? A: No. An extension cannot draw over the browser's own interface. Use BlurScreen for that.

Q: Does BlurScreen work inside web pages too? A: Yes, but the blur is pinned to a screen position, not to the page. If you scroll, the content under the blur changes. For web pages BlurWeb is the better fit.

Q: Do I need both? A: Only if you share more than web pages. If everything you show is in a browser tab, BlurWeb alone is enough.

Q: Is there a mobile version of either? A: No. BlurWeb runs in desktop browsers, including Safari on Mac. BlurScreen runs on Mac and Windows.