Comparison
Smart Blur vs Safe Screen Share: which blur extension to use
Safe Screen Share and Smart Blur are closer than most blur extensions. Both find personal data on a page by themselves, both offer an on-device AI model for names and addresses, and both can protect you automatically around a call. The differences are in what you pay for, how you add your own rules, how the AI runs, and when protection switches on.
We make Smart Blur. Everything below about Safe Screen Share comes from its website and Chrome Web Store listing as of 26 October 2026.
The short version
Smart Blur has a free plan that already finds emails, phone numbers and cards by itself and lets you add unlimited custom patterns, written in plain words or as a regex. Pro adds Local AI, Share Shield and a Screenshot button.
Safe Screen Share has no free plan; it’s a one-time licence. In return it detects more formats out of the box, saves blur profiles, and has a Meeting Mode that applies your profile as soon as a call opens.
What Smart Blur does differently
A free plan that already does the work
Smart Blur’s Patterns blur email addresses, phone numbers, card numbers, US Social Security numbers and IP addresses as soon as a page loads, and as new content appears, on the free plan. So do Keywords to hide, custom patterns, and the Click, Draw and Text tools. You can use it every day without paying.
Safe Screen Share’s website lists no free plan or trial. You buy a licence, with a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Custom patterns, in plain words or regex
Your own identifiers, such as order numbers, policy numbers or patient IDs, follow formats no built-in detector knows. Smart Blur lets you describe one in plain words (“starts with ORD-, then 6 to 8 digits”) or write a regular expression, test it against real text before adding it, and limit it to certain sites. Free, with no limit on how many.
Safe Screen Share’s “Always hide” list takes names, account numbers and keywords, with wildcards. Its website doesn’t mention regular expressions or a way to describe a format. See blur your own ID formats with custom patterns.
Local AI keeps working as the page changes (Pro)
Both extensions run an AI model on your own computer to find names, addresses and account numbers that have no fixed format. They run it differently.
Safe Screen Share’s AI Redact runs when you ask it to: it reads the visible text once, saves what it finds as blur rules, and stops. Smart Blur’s Local AI, once switched on, checks each page as it loads and as new text appears, so a message that arrives mid-call or a record you open later is covered too. It needs a one-time model download of about 810 MB and a browser with WebGPU, and it works best on English text.
Share Shield starts with the share (Pro)
Share Shield switches Smart Blur on in every tab the moment you start sharing from the browser, in Google Meet, Zoom on the web or Teams on the web, hides tab names, and switches off when you stop. You choose whether it turns on Patterns only or Patterns + Local AI, and pages you open during the share stay covered until they’ve been checked.
Safe Screen Share’s Meeting Mode starts when a Meet, Zoom or Teams call opens, rather than when you share. That protects you from the start of the call, but it also blurs your own view for the whole call, not just while you’re presenting. Which suits you depends on how you work.
Screenshot in the extension (Pro)
Smart Blur Pro’s Screenshot button captures the visible area or a region, with the blur already in it, and copies it to your clipboard. Safe Screen Share links to a separate screenshot redaction tool on its website, but doesn’t describe a capture feature in the extension.
Where Safe Screen Share is the better choice
- More formats out of the box. It matches more than 50 formats, including tokens and database URLs, and recognises inboxes in Gmail, Slack and Notion. Smart Blur’s built-in patterns cover fewer; you’d add others as custom patterns.
- Blur profiles. Saved setups for client calls, streaming or demos, switchable in one click.
- Opaque blur. Its blur goes up to fully opaque. Smart Blur only blurs.
- A smaller AI download, about 463 MB, and the website doesn’t list a WebGPU requirement.
- Saved blurs come back on your next visit as part of the licence. In Smart Blur, saving blurs per page is Pro.
- More users, about 500, though with a 4.0 rating from 8 reviews against Smart Blur’s 4.8 from 12.
Side by side
| Smart Blur | Safe Screen Share | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | No, licence |
| Click, area and text blur | Free | Licence |
| Hide tab titles | Free | Licence |
| Finds emails, cards and more by itself | Free | Licence (50+ formats) |
| Keywords to hide | Free, unlimited | Always hide, with wildcards |
| Custom regex patterns | Free, unlimited | Not stated |
| Patterns in plain words, with a test box | Free | Not stated |
| On-device AI for names and addresses | Local AI (Pro), runs as pages change | AI Redact, runs on demand |
| Turns on automatically | Share Shield (Pro), when you share | Meeting Mode, when a call opens |
| Screenshot with the blur in it | Pro | Separate web tool |
| Saved blur profiles | No | Yes |
| Solid or opaque blur | No | Opaque blur |
| Browsers | Chrome, Edge and other Chromium browsers | Chrome, Edge and other Chromium browsers |
| Price model | Free, or Pro yearly or one-time | One-time licence |
Which to choose
Choose Smart Blur if you want automatic detection without paying, need custom patterns for your own ID formats, want AI that keeps checking as the page changes, or want protection that starts with the share rather than the call.
Choose Safe Screen Share if you’d rather pay once for one tool with more formats out of the box, saved blur profiles and protection from the moment a call opens.
For how Smart Blur compares with the other popular blur extensions, see Smart Blur compared.
Checked on 26 October 2026 against Safe Screen Share’s website and Chrome Web Store listing. If something has changed, email support@smartbuildlabs.com and we’ll correct it.