# Zero Hour: full content corpus

> This file concatenates the full markdown of every public page on zerohourbid.com. It is intended for LLM ingestion and is regenerated on every build. The curated index lives at https://zerohourbid.com/llms.txt; the canonical HTML versions live at the URLs listed at the start of each section below.

Generated: 2026-05-27. Pages: 22.

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# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/ebay-sniper/

# Other eBay snipers need your password. Zero Hour doesn't.

**Zero Hour is a browser extension that snipes eBay auctions by firing your bid in the closing seconds.** Unlike Gixen, eSnipe, and Auction Sniper, Zero Hour never requires your eBay username or password. Bids fire from your own browser using your existing eBay session.

This page is a complete, current answer to *what an eBay sniper is, how sniping works, why it's effective, and how to pick one in 2026*. It also covers the privacy distinction that's quietly defined the category for two decades.

## What an eBay sniper actually does

An eBay sniper places your bid in the final seconds of an auction. The mechanic is older than eBay itself. Auction houses called it "going late" long before computers. eBay's combination of fixed end times and proxy bidding is what made automated sniping the dominant winning strategy.

The standard sniping flow:

  - You find an auction you want to win.

  - You set a maximum bid, the highest price you're willing to pay.

  - A sniper schedules a bid to fire in the last 4 to 15 seconds before the auction ends.

  - The bid lands. Other bidders don't see it in time to react.

  - You win at one increment above the second-highest bid. That's exactly what eBay's proxy system was designed to deliver, but without telegraphing your max price to competitors days ahead.

## Why snipe at all? The case against bidding early

Bidding early is almost always a mistake. There are four reasons.

### 1. Early bids invite emotional escalation

The moment you place a high proxy bid, your max becomes part of the auction's pricing signal. Even on legitimate auctions, your competitors see momentum building and respond emotionally. eBay's own data team has measured this behaviour for years. Sniping leaves no time for an emotional response.

### 2. Early bids invite shill bidding

Bad-actor sellers occasionally use secondary accounts to pump prices on their own listings. They need bidders to be present early in the auction to give the pump a target. A sniper fires once at the close, with the seller having no chance to respond.

### 3. The Vickrey outcome is identical, but the price is lower

eBay's proxy bidding system is a sealed second-price auction in disguise. In theory, the price you pay is one increment above the second-highest bidder regardless of when you bid. In practice, every increment you skip past during a multi-hour bidding war pushes the eventual winning price higher. Sniping skips the war entirely. The second-highest bid never had the chance to climb.

### 4. Sniping forces you to decide your max before emotion sets in

Setting a bid days before close means deciding what the item is worth to you when you're calm. Mid-auction, loss-aversion kicks in. Sniping is a commitment device against overbidding.

## Why the password question matters

Every eBay sniper before Zero Hour shared the same architecture: a server-side service where you give them your eBay credentials, they sign into your account from their data centre, and they fire the bid for you. This solves the "computer must stay on" problem (their server is always on) but requires you to hand a stranger full access to your eBay account.

The risks are not theoretical. Some considerations:

  - If the sniper's database is breached, every user's eBay password is exposed. eBay credentials are reused on Amazon, PayPal, and banking by the majority of users.

  - A server-side sniper sees every item you bid on. Most have privacy policies broad enough to share this with "partners."

  - Bids placed from a foreign data centre IP look anomalous to eBay's risk engine. This occasionally triggers temporary holds on accounts that snipe frequently.

  - A common Reddit workaround for Gixen and eSnipe users is to create a separate eBay account with a unique password just for sniping. That solves credential reuse but trades it for split inventory, split history, and the friction of managing two accounts.

Zero Hour was built specifically to remove that requirement. Your browser is already signed into eBay. No third party needs your password to fire a single timed bid.

## How Zero Hour works mechanically

The extension installs a service worker, a popup UI, and a content script that injects a "Snipe this auction" button onto every eBay listing page. When you save a snipe:

  - The snipe is written to `chrome.storage.local` on your machine. Never transmitted.

  - A `chrome.alarms` entry is scheduled for 30 seconds before the auction ends.

  - At T-30s, Chrome wakes the service worker. The worker opens a background tab on the listing (or reuses an existing one) so the eBay page has time to fully load before fire time.

  - At your configured lead time (default 6 seconds), a content script inside that tab submits the bid from the eBay origin itself. The tab carries your session natively, so the extension never has to read it.

  - The response is parsed for success, outbid, and auth-failure indicators.

  - 30 seconds after auction close, a confirmation check verifies the final result.

  - You receive a system notification: 
YOU WON — Hasselblad 500C/M — Final $420
.

The full mechanism is documented in detail on the [privacy architecture page](/privacy-architecture), with code snippets quoted directly from the extension's unminified source.

## What an eBay sniper cannot do (honestly)

No eBay sniper, server-side or client-side, can:

  - Guarantee you win. If someone else's max bid is higher than yours, they win. That's how the auction is supposed to work. Sniping prevents bidding wars, not outright losses.

  - Hide your activity from eBay. Bids appear in eBay's bid history exactly like any other bid.

  - Place a bid below the current price. eBay will reject it and the snipe will fail.

And specifically, a *client-side* sniper like Zero Hour cannot:

  - Fire if your browser is closed at the moment of the snipe.

  - Fire if your computer is asleep at the moment of the snipe.

  - Fire if the extension has been uninstalled or disabled.

These are the price of never giving away your password. We don't pretend otherwise. The homepage and every alternative page reiterates them.

## Choosing an eBay sniper in 2026

Five honest decision criteria, in order:

### 1. Do you trust the provider with your eBay password?

If yes: Gixen is the cheapest and oldest of the server-side options ($2.95/month for unlimited snipes). If no: Zero Hour is the only major sniper that doesn't ask.

### 2. Will your computer be set to not sleep when the auction ends?

Two clicks in System Settings on Mac, or Power & battery on Windows, handles this. Once set, your computer stays awake while the screen still sleeps. The [setup page](/setup) shows exactly which option to tick.

### 3. How often do you snipe?

A handful per month: Gixen's free tier (4 wins/month cap) or Zero Hour's free tier (1 active snipe, unlimited wins) both handle this. Heavier volume on Gixen Free runs into the monthly win ceiling. Heavy buyers at 10 or more per week on eSnipe or Auction Sniper get hit by per-snipe pricing fast. A flat subscription wins.

### 4. How much do you care about the UI?

If you've used eSnipe or Gixen recently you'll recognise the answer immediately. Both sites look like they were last redesigned in 2007. Zero Hour is the only one built as a native modern browser extension.

### 5. Do you ever want to read the code that's bidding on your behalf?

Only Zero Hour ships unminified. Right-click the icon, choose Inspect popup, open Sources, and you'll see the actual JavaScript that fires bids in your name. We don't know of another sniper that does this.

## The five-minute install

  - Visit the Chrome Web Store listing for Zero Hour.

  - Click **Add to Chrome**. Chrome will ask you to approve two things: access to your eBay sites, and permission to show notifications. That's the entire install prompt. The [why-these-permissions](/why-these-permissions) page breaks down every line of the manifest for the curious.

  - Open any eBay auction. Notice the **Snipe this auction** button bottom-right.

  - Click it. Set your max bid. Save.

  - Walk away. The notification will find you.

If you're already signed into eBay (you probably are), the entire flow takes under 60 seconds and never asks for credentials at any point.

## FAQ

### What is an eBay sniper?

An eBay sniper is a tool that places your bid in the final seconds of an eBay auction so other bidders can't react in time to outbid you. eBay permits sniping; it's one of the most effective auction strategies.

### Is using an eBay sniper allowed?

Yes. Per Wikipedia and confirmed by multiple court rulings, sniping is permitted by eBay and does not violate its terms of service. Multiple sniping services have operated openly for over 20 years.

### What's the best eBay sniper?

If you're comfortable storing your eBay password in a third-party database, Gixen is the cheapest server-side option. If you'd rather not give your eBay login to anyone, Zero Hour is currently the only sniper that never asks for it. It runs as a Chrome extension and bids from your own browser, so there is no eBay account security risk from a Zero Hour data breach.

### Can I snipe on eBay without an account on the sniping service?

With Zero Hour, you don't sign up to use it. The free tier needs nothing past installing the extension. Pro asks for the email you pay with at Stripe checkout so we can bind Pro to your install. Every other major sniper requires a full sniping-service account plus your eBay username and password stored in their database, which is an additional eBay account security risk Zero Hour avoids by design.

### Do free eBay snipers actually work?

Yes. Gixen and Zero Hour both offer functional free tiers. Gixen's free Main tier caps at 4 winning snipes per month on a single server. Zero Hour's free tier allows 1 active snipe at a time but has no monthly win cap.

### Will eBay ban me for sniping?

No. eBay's published policy permits sniping. Multiple commercial sniping services have operated on eBay for over two decades without issue. Zero Hour places a normal bid through eBay. There's nothing for eBay to detect, because there's nothing different to detect.

### How much does an eBay sniper cost?

Pricing varies widely. Gixen: free tier (capped at 4 wins/month), Mirror tier $2.95/month. eSnipe: 1.5% of win price ($0.30 minimum, $30 cap), 3-day free trial only. Auction Sniper: 1.95% of win price ($0.35 minimum, $35 cap), first 3 wins free. Zero Hour: free tier (1 active snipe, unlimited wins), $2.95/month, or $49 lifetime.

### Is sniping unfair to other bidders?

Sniping is a legitimate strategy that eBay explicitly permits. It's only 'unfair' in the same way any informed strategy is unfair. The alternative is a bidding war that costs you more for the same item.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/ebay-sniper-chrome-extension/

# eBay Sniper Chrome Extension

**Zero Hour is the eBay sniper Chrome extension that runs entirely in your browser.** It's the first major eBay sniper built as a true Chrome extension rather than a server-side service with a web dashboard. The difference matters: your eBay password never leaves your machine because the extension never asks for it.

## Why a Chrome extension is the right architecture for sniping

For two decades, every eBay sniper has been a website. You'd visit gixen.com or esnipe.com, log in with credentials they collected, paste the eBay URL of the item you want, and trust them with the eBay login details you give them, stored on their servers. You don't have to risk your credentials to run auction snipes anymore.

A modern Chrome extension has everything a sniping tool actually needs without any of that risk:

  - Your existing eBay session, carried natively by the browser tab that fires the bid. The extension never reads it, never stores it, never transmits it.

  - Reliable scheduling with sub-second precision.

  - Local storage, so your snipes live on your machine.

  - System notifications that reach you across tabs.

  - Content scripts, so the "Snipe this auction" button appears on every eBay listing.

None of those capabilities require a server. None of them require credentials. The first sniper to actually use them was Zero Hour.

## What the Chrome extension does, end to end

### 1. Install

From the Chrome Web Store. Chrome shows two install warnings: access to your eBay sites, and permission to show notifications. The extension never asks for any login or signup.

### 2. Identity

The first time you open the popup, the extension generates a random ID for your install. That ID is used to check whether you are on Free or Pro. If you upgrade later, Stripe collects an email at checkout and your Pro plan is tied to that email, so you can activate Pro on another browser by typing the same email. The free tier needs nothing past the install ID.

### 3. Sniping

Two ways to add a snipe:

  - **On any eBay auction page:** click the "Snipe this auction" pill that appears bottom-right. Item details load directly into the extension.

  - **From the extension itself:** tap the plus (+) button, paste any eBay URL.

Either path lands you on the Add Snipe sheet: thumbnail, title, current price, end-time, max-bid input, and an advanced lead-time slider (default 6 seconds). Tap Save. The snipe slides into your Active list.

### 4. Firing

30 seconds before close, the extension wakes in the background. It opens (or reuses) a tab on the eBay listing so the page is loaded in its native context. At your configured lead time (default 6 seconds before close), the bid is submitted from the eBay tab. The result is displayed in the extension popup the next time you open it.

### 5. Notification

A system notification appears immediately: 
YOU WON. [item]. Final $X
.

## Permissions

At install, Chrome asks you to approve two things: access to your eBay sites (so the snipe button can appear on listings and the bid can fire), and permission to show notifications (so you know when a snipe wins, loses, or fails). The manifest declares a handful of additional narrow permissions that Chrome treats as silent (no install warning). The full breakdown of every line lives on the [permissions page](/why-these-permissions).

## Source code transparency

Zero Hour ships **unminified**. Right-click the icon, choose Inspect popup, open Sources, and you're looking at the literal JavaScript executing on your machine. Variables have real names. Functions are commented.

This is rare. We think it should be the norm for any extension that touches sensitive accounts. A separately published GitHub repo can drift from what's actually shipped. The binary on your machine cannot.

## FAQ

### Is Zero Hour available on the Chrome Web Store?

Yes. <a href='https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/djapfgjckemgghfekkdcjfdehfmcmdfe' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>Install Zero Hour from the Chrome Web Store</a>. Installation is free; the free tier supports 1 active snipe with unlimited monthly wins, no ads, no signup, and Zero Hour never asks for your eBay password.

### Does Zero Hour work on other browsers?

Yes. Zero Hour works on Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi. Firefox is on the roadmap, no fixed date yet.

### Does the extension need to be open for the snipe to fire?

No. The bid fires whether or not the extension popup is open. Your browser does need to be running and your computer awake at the moment of the snipe. The <a href='/setup'>setup page</a> shows the two-click power adjustment that handles this.

### How big is the extension?

Under 500 KB unpacked. The unminified production build is intentionally readable rather than minimised.

### How often does the extension update?

Updates roll out via the Chrome Web Store as needed. Chrome's auto-update handles it; you'll never be prompted.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/gixen-alternative/

# Gixen needs your eBay password. Zero Hour doesn't.

**Looking for a Gixen alternative with a better free tier, the same paid price, and no need to hand over your eBay password?** Zero Hour is the only one that ticks all three. Gixen Free caps at 4 winning snipes per month and shows ads. Zero Hour Free has unlimited monthly wins, no ads, no signup, and never asks for your eBay password, so there is no third-party database holding your eBay login. The paid tiers are identical at $2.95 per month, but Zero Hour also offers a one-time $49 lifetime plan that Gixen does not have.

**Best for:** Gixen users who've ever felt a moment of hesitation while typing their eBay password into someone else's website. Or who maintain a separate "decoy" eBay account specifically because Gixen has their main one.

**Not ideal for:** users who close their browser overnight and need a server-side service that fires bids while their computer is off.

## How Gixen works (and what you have to trust)

Gixen is a web app at [gixen.com](https://www.gixen.com). You create a Gixen account with an email and password. Then, separately, you enter your *eBay* username and password into Gixen's settings page. Gixen stores those credentials on its servers in Florida. When an auction nears its close, Gixen's server signs into your eBay account on your behalf and places the bid.

The model is simple, the price is reasonable ($2.95/month for unlimited fault-tolerant snipes), and the service has 20 years of operational track record. The one architectural fact about Gixen that nothing on their site can change:

  - Your eBay credentials are stored on Gixen's server. They've never had a public breach, but the data is sitting there.

  - Bids fire from Gixen's servers' IP addresses, which sometimes triggers eBay's risk engine. This is a known issue documented across Reddit threads.

  - If Gixen's server is down at the moment of your snipe, the snipe doesn't fire. Gixen runs redundant infrastructure to mitigate this, but it's still infrastructure you depend on.

  - You have to trust Gixen with the same password you use for everything else. Many Gixen users maintain a separate eBay account just for sniping as a workaround.

## How Zero Hour solves it

Zero Hour is a Chrome extension, not a website. The bid fires from your own machine, using your own browser, with your own eBay cookies. There is no Zero Hour server in the bid-placement loop at all.

Specifically:

  - No Zero Hour account to sign up for. The free tier needs nothing past installing the extension. Pro asks for the email you pay with at Stripe checkout, used only to bind Pro to your install.

  - No place to type your eBay password. There is literally no input field for it anywhere in the extension.

  - Bids fire from your IP. eBay sees them exactly as if you'd placed them manually.

  - Your snipe data lives in `chrome.storage.local` on your computer. Uninstall the extension and it's all gone.

## The one practical difference

Gixen's server fires bids even when your computer is off. Zero Hour fires them from your browser, so the browser needs to be running. Once your computer is set to not sleep, you're set. The two-click adjustment for Mac and Windows is on the [setup page](/setup). In exchange, Zero Hour never asks for your eBay password, because [it bids from your own browser session](/privacy-architecture).

## Feature-by-feature

### Pricing and the free-tier reality

Gixen Free: free, capped at 4 winning snipes per month, ad-supported dashboard, single-server reliability, and Gixen still wants your eBay password to use it. Gixen Mirror (paid): $2.95/month, unlimited snipes with two-server fault-tolerance, still requires your eBay password. Zero Hour Free: 1 active snipe at a time, unlimited monthly wins, no ads, no signup, no eBay password. Zero Hour Pro Monthly: $2.95/month. Zero Hour Pro Lifetime: $49 once. $2.95/month matches Gixen's paid tier exactly, but Zero Hour's free tier is the only one with no monthly win ceiling. The lifetime plan is the clear winner past 17 months ($2.95 x 17 = $50.15 in Gixen subscription fees vs $49 once on Zero Hour). Gixen has no lifetime option at all.

### Reliability

Gixen claims roughly 95 to 98% reliability depending on plan. Zero Hour targets the same window, closer to 99.5% under typical conditions (browser running, computer awake, eBay session valid). The failure modes differ: Gixen's is server outages; Zero Hour's is the browser being closed at the wrong moment.

### UI

Gixen's interface predates flat design. It works, but every interaction goes through a full page load. Zero Hour is a 400x600 popup that responds instantly. Every state transition is animated, every countdown ticks live, and every result is visible without leaving the popup.

### Auditability

Gixen is closed source. You trust the binary that runs on their servers. Zero Hour ships unminified. Right-click the icon, choose Inspect popup, open Sources, and you'll see the actual code firing your bids. Completely different transparency models.

### Multi-region support

Both work on every eBay regional marketplace (all 18 TLDs, including .com, .co.uk, .com.au, .de, .nl, .be, .com.sg, and others). Both handle currency conversion correctly when placing bids in non-USD listings.

### Group bidding

Gixen supports grouped snipes ("snipe this OR this OR this, stop after one wins"). Zero Hour does not in v1. It's a planned v2 feature once single-snipe UX is fully polished.

## What Gixen does better

To be fair:

  - Sniping while your computer is off. Server-side wins this outright.

  - Group bids and OR-snipes. Mature on Gixen.

  - 20 years of reputation. Gixen has been operating since 2006; Zero Hour launched in 2026.

  - 20 years of accumulated features (group bids, OR-snipes, multi-account) that Zero Hour hasn't matched yet.

## Migrating from Gixen

The migration takes about three minutes:

  - Install Zero Hour from the Chrome Web Store.

  - In Gixen, cancel any active snipes you'd like to move. No need to delete the account if you'd prefer to keep both running.

  - For each item, paste the URL into Zero Hour's Add Snipe sheet. Set your max. Save.

  - Optional: in Gixen, change your eBay password (since they've had it). Your browser will pick up the new session automatically.

If you're moving permanently, deleting your Gixen account also removes your eBay credentials from their database.

## FAQ

### Is Gixen safe?

Gixen has operated without a public security incident since 2006 and is widely considered safe in practice. The underlying architecture, however, requires you to entrust them with your eBay password. Zero Hour eliminates that by not asking for one. 'Safe' depends on your threat model.

### Can I use Gixen and Zero Hour at the same time?

Yes. They don't conflict. Both place normal bids through eBay. Just don't schedule both to snipe the same item; you'd be bidding against yourself.

### What's the cheapest Gixen alternative?

On monthly price, Gixen Mirror ($2.95/month) and Zero Hour Pro Monthly ($2.95/month) are identically priced. Zero Hour's Lifetime plan ($49 once) is the cheapest option past 17 months and permanently eliminates both the renewal and the credential-sharing requirement.

### Does Zero Hour run on redundant servers?

Zero Hour doesn't run on servers at all for bid placement. The bid fires from your own browser, so there are no servers to make redundant. Your browser just needs to be running at snipe time.

### Is Gixen open source?

No, Gixen is closed source. The Zero Hour extension ships unminified, so the actual bid-placement code is readable on your own machine.

### What happens to my Gixen snipes when I switch?

Nothing automatic. Zero Hour and Gixen are independent systems. You'll need to cancel active snipes on Gixen and recreate them in Zero Hour. Bid history on Gixen remains in your Gixen account.

### Can Gixen detect that I switched to Zero Hour?

No. Gixen only sees activity on its own service. Zero Hour fires bids directly from your browser. Neither service has visibility into the other.

### Will my eBay account be safer with Zero Hour?

Yes, strictly. Zero Hour never asks for or stores your eBay password, so a Zero Hour breach cannot expose what we don't have. With Gixen (or any server-side sniper), your credentials live in their database.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/auction-sniper-alternative/

# Auction Sniper charges per win. Zero Hour doesn't.

**Looking for an Auction Sniper alternative that doesn't bill per snipe and doesn't need your eBay password?** Zero Hour is built for exactly that. AuctionSniper.com has been around since 1999 and pioneered the per-snipe pricing model. That model adds up alarmingly fast for active eBay buyers. Zero Hour is one flat price (or free), and your browser does the bidding.

**Best for:** Auction Sniper users who've watched the per-snipe charges compound, or who want to stop entering their eBay password into a third-party form.

**Not ideal for:** users who snipe a small handful of items per year and prefer never to commit to a subscription.

## How Auction Sniper works

AuctionSniper.com is a server-side sniper, founded in 1999 and currently owned by Sniper Holdings. Like Gixen and eSnipe, you create an account on AuctionSniper, enter your eBay credentials into their settings page, and they place bids on your behalf from their servers. The first three wins are free; after that, pricing is a percentage of the winning bid: 1.95% per win, with a $0.35 minimum and a $35 maximum cap. Auctions you do not win are free.

The model has worked for 20+ years. There's a real audience for it: occasional buyers who'd rather pay 35 cents on a $20 win than commit to a subscription. But for anyone bidding regularly on mid-priced items, the percentage adds up fast.

## The pricing math

Some real comparisons against Auction Sniper's 1.95%-of-win fee structure:

  - Win 10 items at $20 each: $3.50 in fees (the $0.35 minimum applies). Roughly the same as Zero Hour Monthly ($2.95).

  - Win 4 items at $75 each: $5.85 in fees (1.95% per win). Already more than Zero Hour Monthly.

  - Win 10 items at $200 each: $39 in fees. Zero Hour Monthly is $2.95 for the same month.

  - Win one $2,000 item: $35 in fees (capped). That single win costs less on Zero Hour Lifetime ($49 once) than 1.5 such wins on Auction Sniper.

  - Win 50 mid-priced items over a year: commonly $50 to $200 in Auction Sniper fees. Zero Hour Lifetime is $49 once, forever.

For typical eBay buyers winning mid-priced items consistently, Zero Hour pays for itself within weeks.

## The privacy distinction (same as every server-side sniper)

Auction Sniper has the same architectural trust problem as Gixen and eSnipe:

  - Your eBay password lives in their database.

  - Bids fire from their data centre IPs.

  - The service has visibility into every item you've ever sniped.

  - Their breach is your breach.

Zero Hour was designed so this requirement no longer exists. Bids fire from your machine using cookies your browser already holds. Auction Sniper would need to invert their entire architecture to match. It would no longer be a web service.

Auction Sniper logs into your eBay account from their servers. Zero Hour stays on your machine, and the [architecture page explains exactly what gets sent where](/privacy-architecture).

## Where Auction Sniper still wins

Honest assessment:

  - Computer-off sniping. Server-side fires the bid whether or not your computer is on. Zero Hour can't.

  - Pay-only-when-you-win pricing. Three free wins, then 1.95% of the win price, capped at $35. Genuinely cheap if you only buy one or two low-ticket items a year.

  - Bulk and group snipes. Auction Sniper has mature "snipe groups." Zero Hour ships this in v2.

  - Two decades of reliability data.

## Feature comparison: head to head

The honest summary table is in the [privacy comparison](#compare) below. The headline differences:

  - Auction Sniper requires your eBay password; Zero Hour never asks.

  - Auction Sniper bills 1.95% of each win (capped); Zero Hour bills flat monthly or lifetime, regardless of how much you win.

  - Auction Sniper is a website; Zero Hour is a Chrome extension.

  - Auction Sniper is closed-source; Zero Hour ships unminified.

## Migration in 4 minutes

  - Install Zero Hour from the Chrome Web Store.

  - In Auction Sniper, cancel any pending snipes you'd like to move.

  - Paste each eBay URL into Zero Hour's Add Snipe sheet, set max bid, save.

  - If you'd like to permanently remove your eBay credentials from Auction Sniper's database, log into account settings and delete your account. Or simply change your eBay password. Their stored copy will stop working.

## FAQ

### Is there a free alternative to Auction Sniper?

Yes. Zero Hour's free tier supports 1 active snipe at a time with no monthly win cap, unlimited wins per month, no ads, no signup, and bids fire from your own browser. No per-snipe cost, and Zero Hour never asks for your eBay password, so there is no third-party database holding your eBay login.

### Why does Auction Sniper need my eBay password?

Because it's a server-side service. Their server signs into your eBay account from their data centre to fire bids. The architecture necessarily requires your credentials. Zero Hour doesn't, because it runs in your browser.

### Is Auction Sniper safe?

Auction Sniper has operated for two decades without a public breach. 'Safe' depends on whether you're comfortable storing your eBay password in any third-party database. If you're not, a client-side tool like Zero Hour is the only architectural alternative.

### Can I use Zero Hour and Auction Sniper at the same time?

Technically yes. They're independent services. Just don't schedule both to bid on the same item. You'd be bidding against yourself, which could push your own price up.

### Does Zero Hour have group snipes like Auction Sniper?

Not in v1. Group snipes ('bid on these three items, stop after one wins') are a planned v2 feature.

### What if I close my browser by accident?

Zero Hour cannot fire bids when your browser is closed. Leave the browser running until close. If you routinely close your browser during auction hours and won't remember to leave it open, a server-side sniper that holds your password is your alternative.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/esnipe-alternative/

# eSnipe charges per win. Zero Hour doesn't.

**Looking for an eSnipe alternative that doesn't take a percentage of your wins?** Zero Hour is the answer. eSnipe.com has charged a percentage of the winning bid (currently 1.5%, with a $0.30 minimum and $30 maximum) since 1999. That model scales painfully when you start winning bigger items. Zero Hour is flat-priced or lifetime, and it never asks for your eBay password.

**Best for:** eSnipe users who've watched the percentage creep up on a $400 win and decided there had to be a better deal. Or anyone tired of pasting their eBay credentials into a web form.

**Not ideal for:** users who snipe a single $50 item every two years. At that volume, eSnipe's per-win pricing is genuinely cheap.

## How eSnipe works

eSnipe.com is one of the oldest eBay snipers, founded in 1999 alongside Auction Sniper. You create an eSnipe account, enter your eBay username and password into their settings, and they fire bids on your behalf from their servers. eSnipe doesn't bill upfront; when you win an auction via a snipe, eSnipe takes a percentage of the winning price (currently 1.5%, capped at $30, floored at $0.30).

The model has a couple of appealing properties: you pay nothing when a snipe loses, and the marginal cost feels invisible at small ticket prices. It also has obvious downsides: the percentage adds up on bigger items, and the only way to use eSnipe at all is to share your eBay credentials.

## The pricing math

eSnipe's pricing scales with what you spend on eBay. Some real comparisons:

  - Win 10 items at $20 each: $3 total ($0.30 per win, the floor). Roughly the same as Zero Hour Monthly.

  - Win 4 items at $75 each: $4.50 total ($1.125 per win at 1.5%). Zero Hour Monthly ($2.95) is already cheaper, with no per-win fee.

  - Win 10 items at $200 each: $30 total. Zero Hour Monthly ($2.95) is cheaper by a wide margin.

  - Win 10 items at $500 each: $75 total. Zero Hour Lifetime ($49) is cheaper, and it covers every future snipe too.

  - Win 100 items over 5 years: commonly $150 to $400 in eSnipe fees. Zero Hour Lifetime is $49 once.

For typical eBay buyers winning mid-priced items consistently, Zero Hour pays for itself within months.

## The credential question

eSnipe shares the architectural problem of every server-side sniper:

  - Your eBay password is stored on their server.

  - Bids fire from their data centres rather than your IP.

  - The service sees every auction you snipe.

  - A breach on their side is a breach of your eBay account.

To eSnipe's credit, they've been operating since 1999 without a publicly disclosed breach. But the architectural exposure is intrinsic to the model. Zero Hour doesn't have the exposure because it doesn't have the architecture. Your browser does the bidding.

Like every cloud sniper, eSnipe needs your eBay credentials. Zero Hour avoids this category of risk entirely; here is [why no password is asked for](/privacy-architecture).

## The UI gap is worth mentioning

eSnipe's interface, like Gixen's, predates contemporary web design. Every interaction is a page load. There's no live countdown, no responsive snipe-card view, no integrated browser experience. Zero Hour lives natively in your browser as a 400x600 popup with live countdowns and animated state transitions. The gap is significant.

## Where eSnipe still wins

  - Pay-only-when-you-win pricing. Genuinely friendly for very low usage.

  - Computer-off sniping. Same as every server-side service: their server is always on.

  - Group snipes. Mature on eSnipe ("Bid Groups"). Zero Hour ships these in v2.

  - Long operational track record. 25+ years.

## Migration steps

  - Install Zero Hour from the Chrome Web Store.

  - Cancel pending eSnipe snipes you'd like to move.

  - Paste each eBay URL into Zero Hour's Add Snipe sheet. Set max. Save.

  - To remove your eBay credentials from eSnipe's database: account settings, then delete profile. Or change your eBay password. eSnipe's stored copy stops working immediately.

## FAQ

### Is there an eSnipe alternative without the percentage fee?

Yes. Zero Hour charges $2.95/month or $49 once for lifetime use, regardless of how much you win. The break-even point against eSnipe is roughly 2 wins at $100 each per month, or fewer on bigger items.

### Is eSnipe still active?

Yes. eSnipe has been running since 1999 and continues to operate. Their UI is dated but functional.

### Is eSnipe safe?

eSnipe has no publicly disclosed breach history. The architectural exposure of storing eBay passwords on their server is the same as every server-side sniper. That's the structural problem Zero Hour eliminates.

### What's the cheapest way to snipe eBay if I only buy a few things a year?

For 1 to 3 wins a year on low-ticket items, eSnipe's per-win fee may genuinely be cheaper than any subscription. Above that, Zero Hour Lifetime ($49 once) is the clear winner.

### Can Zero Hour fire when my computer is off?

No. The bid fires from your browser, so your computer needs to be awake at the moment of the snipe. The two-click adjustment on the <a href='/setup'>setup page</a> sets your computer to not sleep while still letting the screen sleep. Once set, you're fine.

### Does Zero Hour handle group bids like eSnipe Bid Groups?

Not in v1. Group bids are planned for v2 once single-snipe UX is polished to the point we'd want.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/is-ebay-sniping-safe/

# Is eBay sniping safe?

**Yes. eBay sniping is safe in the sense that matters: it doesn't violate eBay's rules and it doesn't expose you to risk if the sniper is built correctly.** That "if" is doing the work in that sentence. The structural risks of sniping come almost entirely from the architecture of the sniping service you choose, not from the act of sniping itself.

This page is for the user who searched *"is ebay sniping safe"* or *"is gixen safe"* at midnight, halfway through typing a password into a stranger's website. The honest answer is in two parts: **sniping is fine. The credential model that powers most snipers is what makes people nervous.**

## Is sniping allowed by eBay?

Yes. eBay's terms permit sniping. Wikipedia summarises it cleanly:

"Sniping is permitted by eBay and is not forbidden by its rules. eBay's official position is that the practice does not violate any of the site's policies."

This has been settled for over two decades. In 2002, a Berlin court struck down a brief attempt by eBay Germany to ban sniping. The German Federal Court of Justice later affirmed that automated last-second bidding through external services was legally permitted. eBay's American operations never attempted a ban. Commercial sniping services have operated openly on the platform since 1999.

So the act of sniping is not the risk. The risk is in *how* the sniper places the bid.

## The real risk: where your eBay password lives

Every major eBay sniper before Zero Hour shares one architectural property: they need your eBay username and password to do their job. The reason is mechanical. Their bid-placement code runs on their server, which means their server has to be able to log into eBay as you.

This means:

  - Your eBay password is stored, in some form, on a third-party database. Most services hash or encrypt it, but it has to be reversible enough for them to log in with it.

  - A breach of the sniper is a breach of your eBay account. If their database leaks, attackers have your credentials.

  - You're trusting a small business with the same password you reuse on Amazon, PayPal, and banking. Most users reuse passwords. That's not a moral failing; it's reality.

  - You're sharing your auction-buying history with a third party for the lifetime of your account.

Within the sniping community, a common workaround is to create a "decoy" eBay account specifically for use with sniping services: a separate account with a unique password, used only for purchases run through the sniper. This works, but it splits your eBay history across two accounts and requires you to manage two profiles. It also doesn't help if the sniper's database leak exposes the decoy account at the moment it has $4,000 worth of pending wins.

## Why Zero Hour doesn't have any of this

Zero Hour is structurally different. It is not a website. It is a Chrome extension that runs entirely on your machine. The bid is placed from your own browser to eBay's bid endpoint, using the eBay session cookie your browser already holds because you're already signed in.

That means:

  - There is no form anywhere in Zero Hour for entering your eBay password.

  - There is no Zero Hour database storing your eBay password. We literally don't have one.

  - There is no Zero Hour server in the bid-placement loop. The bid goes directly from your browser to eBay.

  - A breach of Zero Hour's website cannot expose your eBay credentials, because we don't have them.

This is more than a marketing claim. The extension ships unminified. Right-click the extension icon, choose Inspect popup, open Sources, and you'll read the actual JavaScript executing on your machine. The bid-placement code is in `src/content-script/bidder.ts` (running inside the eBay listing tab) and the scheduler that orchestrates it is in `src/service-worker/placeBid.ts`. Plain TypeScript, no obfuscation.

Because [the extension's source code is available unminified](/security-audit), the claim is checkable rather than asked-to-be-trusted.

## Could Zero Hour go rogue in an update?

Theoretically, an updated version of any Chrome extension could request new permissions or behave differently. Chrome's permission model surfaces this: any extension update that requests new permissions requires user re-consent before it activates. An update that added a permission to read your bank's cookies would prompt you explicitly. Zero Hour's published permissions are narrowly scoped to eBay domains and the Zero Hour entitlement endpoint.

That said: the most reliable defence against any extension going rogue is being able to read its code. Zero Hour is the only major eBay sniper where you can.

## What about eBay banning my account for sniping?

This is the second most common safety worry. The short answer: eBay does not ban accounts for sniping. Sniping doesn't appear differently in eBay's bid logs from any other bid. It's a normal POST to the same endpoint as a manual bid. eBay's risk engine flags accounts for fraud, payment issues, and policy violations. "This user placed a winning bid two seconds before close" is not on the list, because it's one of the most common winning behaviours on the platform.

Multiple sniping services have operated on eBay for 20+ years. eBay has never moved to ban them, has never moved to detect them at the bid-API level, and has never penalised users for using them. The legal precedent from Germany in 2002 and the operational track record are both clear.

## What about phishing snipers?

There are occasional reports of "free eBay sniper" tools that turn out to be credential-harvesting scams. The signal to look for is the same: does it ask for your eBay password? A legitimate Chrome extension does not need to. A legitimate web-based sniper has the architectural requirement but should at minimum have years of operating history, a verifiable business, and a privacy policy you can read.

Zero Hour does not have a password field at all. If anyone ever clones Zero Hour and adds one, it's not us. Verify the publisher in the Chrome Web Store listing.

## The safe sniping checklist

  - Use a sniper that doesn't require your eBay password if you can. Fewer surface areas for breach.

  - If you must use a server-side sniper, use one with a long track record and consider a unique eBay password just for it.

  - Enable 2FA on your eBay account regardless.

  - Use a password manager (1Password, Bitwarden) so any breach is a single-site breach.

  - If using a Chrome extension, verify the publisher's identity in the Chrome Web Store and check the requested permissions match what the tool needs.

## The bottom line

Sniping itself is safe. It's a normal feature of how auctions work, eBay permits it, and courts have affirmed it. The unsafe parts of the category have all come from the credential-sharing model of legacy snipers, which is exactly the problem Zero Hour was built to remove.

## FAQ

### Is eBay sniping illegal?

No. Sniping is permitted under eBay's terms of service. It's been affirmed legal by courts in multiple jurisdictions. Commercial sniping services have operated openly for over 20 years.

### Can eBay tell I'm using a sniper?

There's nothing in a snipe bid that looks different from a normal manual bid placed in the final seconds, because it isn't different. Zero Hour places a standard bid.

### Will my eBay account get banned for sniping?

No. There is no public record of eBay banning accounts for sniping, and multiple sniping services have operated for two decades without their users being banned. Sniping is not a flag in eBay's risk engine.

### Is Gixen safe?

Gixen has no publicly disclosed breach history in nearly 20 years of operation. The structural risk (storing your eBay credentials on their server) is intrinsic to the server-side model. If you're comfortable with that exposure, Gixen is reasonable. If not, Zero Hour eliminates the exposure architecturally.

### Is eSnipe safe?

Same answer as Gixen. No known breaches, but the credential-storage exposure is structural. Zero Hour avoids it by running entirely in your browser.

### What's the safest eBay sniper?

Architecturally, a client-side sniper like Zero Hour: no credentials stored anywhere, no third-party server in the bid loop, code inspectable in your own browser. Operationally, all major snipers have decent track records.

### Do I need to give the sniper my eBay password?

Only if you choose a server-side service (Gixen, eSnipe, Auction Sniper, BidNapper). Zero Hour, the only modern Chrome-extension sniper, never asks for it.

### What happens if a sniper goes out of business?

With a server-side sniper, all your pending snipes vanish. If you reused passwords, you may want to rotate them. With Zero Hour, your snipe history lives on your own machine in chrome.storage.local. There's no service to lose.

### Can a sniper steal my eBay account?

A malicious sniper with your credentials could do this. That's why the credential-sharing model is the structural risk. Zero Hour can't, because it never has your credentials in the first place.

### Should I use 2FA on eBay if I'm sniping?

Yes, regardless of which sniper you use. Server-side snipers historically have workarounds for 2FA (they ask for app passwords or session tokens). Zero Hour doesn't need any of that because it uses the same cookie your browser already has.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/privacy-architecture/

# Privacy architecture: inspect it yourself.

This page is a guided tour of every network request, storage write, and permission Zero Hour uses, quoted from the extension's actual shipped source. Because the production build ships unminified, every snippet below can be verified on your own machine in three clicks: right-click the Zero Hour icon, choose Inspect popup, open Sources.

If anything here doesn't match what you see in your installation, the install on your machine is canonical. Tell us.

## The complete network behaviour of the extension

Zero Hour makes exactly four categories of network request: the bid POST and a pre-fetch to eBay, an entitlement lookup to our backend, and, for Pro users only, a one-time activate call carrying the Stripe checkout email. No analytics pings, no event reporting, no error telemetry, no advertising IDs, no third-party scripts.

### 1. The bid submission (to eBay)

At T-minus-6 seconds (or your configured lead time), a content script running inside an eBay listing tab submits the bid. The privacy invariant you can verify in your own DevTools: every bid-related fetch in the extension targets the same regional `www.ebay.*` host whose page it's running on. Nothing else.

The request runs inside the eBay listing tab. Chrome attaches your eBay session natively. Anti-fraud tokens the page already holds are picked up natively because the script runs in the page context. The bid hits eBay from your machine, your IP, your session. Zero Hour's own server is not involved.

### 2. The pre-fetch (to eBay)

At T-30s, the service worker opens (or focuses) a background tab on the listing URL so the page can warm its session. The content script then reads whatever per-action data eBay's current bid form expects from the page itself. Same destination (eBay), same session behaviour. Read once, used once, discarded.

### 3. The entitlement check (to zerohourbid.com)

A GET with the install ID. Returns plan status:

`// src/lib/api.ts (excerpt)
const installId = await getInstallId(); // random UUIDv4
const url = `https://zerohourbid.com/api/entitlement?install_id=${installId}`;
const res = await fetch(url);
const data = await res.json();
// { plan: 'free' | 'monthly' | 'lifetime', valid_until: '...' }`

That's the entire payload. No item titles, no bid history, no eBay IDs, no usernames. Just "is this install Pro?"

### 4. The activate-Pro call (to zerohourbid.com, Pro users only)

When you tap *Already paid? Activate with your email* in the extension, the popup POSTs your install ID and the email you used at Stripe checkout. The backend looks up the matching Pro record and binds the install ID to it.

`// src/lib/api.ts (excerpt)
const res = await fetch('https://zerohourbid.com/api/restore', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ email, install_id: installId }),
});
// 200 -> { plan, valid_until } | 404 -> not_found | 429 -> cooldown_active`

This call is made on demand only, when you choose to activate Pro on a browser. There is no background polling of your email.

### Four request categories. Two endpoints (eBay and zerohourbid.com). That's the list.

You can verify it yourself with Chrome's DevTools Network panel. Open the popup with DevTools attached, perform any action, and watch the request log. There is nothing else.

## The complete storage behaviour

Zero Hour writes to two Chrome storage APIs, both of which live on your machine.

### chrome.storage.local: snipes and history

Active and completed snipes. Never transmitted anywhere. Cleared when you uninstall the extension.

`// src/lib/storage.ts
await chrome.storage.local.set({ snipes: updated });
// keys: snipes, settings
`

### chrome.storage.sync: install ID only

A single UUID, synced across your own Chrome installs if you're signed into Chrome sync. Not synced to Zero Hour's servers. Only to Google's Chrome sync infrastructure, exactly like your bookmarks.

`// src/lib/install-id.ts
const installId = crypto.randomUUID();
await chrome.storage.sync.set({ installId });
`

### What is never stored

  - Your eBay password. There is no form to capture it.

  - Your eBay session cookies. The bid script reads them from `document.cookie` inside the eBay tab where you're already signed in; the extension itself never copies, transmits, or persists them.

  - Your eBay username. Extracted only locally for display in the popup; never transmitted.

  - Any IP address, device identifier, or browser fingerprint.

## The complete permissions list, and why each one is needed

  

    

Permission

Why it's needed

  

  

    

`alarms`

Wake the service worker 30 seconds before each scheduled snipe. The only reliable wake mechanism in Manifest V3.

    

`storage`

Store snipes and settings in `chrome.storage.local`. Never leaves your machine.

    

`notifications`

Tell you when a snipe wins, loses, or fails. System-level Chrome notification, not push.

    

`activeTab`

Used by the "Snipe this auction" content script button on eBay pages.

    

host: `*.ebay.com` et al

Required to read cookies and post the bid to eBay. Limited to eBay regional domains.

    

host: `zerohourbid.com`

Only for the entitlement check. Single endpoint, single param.

  

Notice what isn't here: no `history`, no `identity`, no broad `&lt;all_urls&gt;` host permission, no `webRequest`, no `tabs`. Each permission has a specific, narrow purpose and a specific line of code that uses it. The service worker still opens and reuses an eBay listing tab at fire time so the bid runs from the real page context, but this is covered by the existing eBay `host_permissions` alone; it does not require the separate `tabs` permission, which would have triggered Chrome's "Read your browsing history" warning on the install card.

## How to verify all of this yourself

  - **Install Zero Hour.**

  - **Right-click the Zero Hour icon** in your Chrome toolbar.

  - **Select "Inspect popup".** Chrome DevTools opens, attached to the popup.

  - **Click the Sources tab.** You'll see the extension's full file tree. Variable names are intact. Comments are preserved.

  - **Open the Network tab**, then trigger an action: saving a snipe, opening the paywall, refreshing entitlement. Every outgoing request is logged here.

  - The bid POST itself you can verify by setting a snipe for the very near future and watching the Network tab inside the eBay listing tab (DevTools → that tab). The bid runs in `src/content-script/bidder.ts`.

## What about the service worker?

Service worker code is harder to attach DevTools to but still inspectable. Visit `chrome://extensions/`, enable Developer mode top-right, find Zero Hour, click **service worker** next to its entry. DevTools opens attached to the worker. All bid logic is in `src/service-worker/`.

## The "no minification" decision

Most extensions minify their production builds. Minification removes whitespace, mangles variable names, and strips comments. The norm exists for good reasons: smaller downloads, slight performance gains, mild IP protection.

Zero Hour explicitly opts out. Our Vite config disables Terser, name mangling, and source-map stripping. The packaged production extension submitted to the Chrome Web Store contains source as readable as our development build. The performance cost is negligible on a 500KB extension. The transparency gain is the entire product.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/ebay-sniping-guide/

# The complete eBay sniping guide.

A complete, jargon-free guide to sniping eBay in 2026: what it is, why it works, how it differs from automatic bidding, and how to do it without giving your password to a third party.

## What sniping actually is

Sniping is the practice of placing your bid in the final seconds of an eBay auction. The goal is simple: leave no time for other bidders to react. Whatever your maximum bid is, you'd rather competitors not see it until it's too late to outbid you.

The name comes from military slang for a single decisive shot from cover. In auction terms it's older than that. Auction houses have called it "going late" for centuries.

## Why sniping works

Two independent mechanisms make sniping the dominant winning strategy on eBay.

### 1. eBay's fixed end time

Unlike sites that extend an auction whenever someone bids in the last 30 seconds (Yahoo! Auctions in Japan, Catawiki), eBay auctions end at a hard-stop time. This creates the structural opportunity for a last-second bid that can't be responded to.

### 2. The proxy-bidding paradox

eBay's proxy-bidding system is supposed to make sniping unnecessary. You set a maximum; eBay bids the minimum required to keep you on top, only revealing your max if another bidder forces it. In theory, sniping is no better than placing a max bid days early.

In practice, two things break the theory:

  - Each visible bid round triggers other bidders to revise their own maxes upward. The eventual winning price drifts higher than it would have if competitors hadn't been alerted.

  - Watching a price tick up activates loss-aversion instincts. People raise their maxes mid-auction in ways they wouldn't have if asked cold.

Sniping skips both. Your competitor's max stays where it was when the auction opened.

### 3. Shill bidding defence

A small minority of sellers use secondary accounts to inflate prices on their own listings. These pumps require visible activity earlier in the auction to give the pump cover. A snipe is invisible until the moment it lands, too late for a shill to respond.

## Sniping vs. eBay's automatic (proxy) bidding

This distinction confuses a lot of new users. They're not the same thing:

  - **Automatic bidding (proxy bidding)** is eBay's built-in feature. You set a max; eBay raises the visible bid in your name up to that max as other bidders push. The max is visible to eBay throughout the auction, and the incrementing behaviour affects competing bids.

  - **Sniping** is a single, late-firing bid placed seconds before close. It's independent of proxy bidding. Your snipe simply becomes the new max in the proxy system at the moment it lands.

For a longer treatment, see [automatic bidding vs sniping](/ebay-automatic-bidding-vs-sniping).

## The mechanics of a good snipe

Two parameters matter most.

### Maximum bid

What you'd genuinely be willing to pay. Set this before emotional bidding can distort it. Items you don't want at any price don't get sniped.

### Lead time

How many seconds before close the bid fires. Zero Hour allows 4 to 15 seconds, with a default of 6. The floor is 4 because the full bid flow takes about 4 seconds end-to-end. Anything above 8 seconds gives other snipers a chance to respond. 6 is a good place to sit.

## Last-second bidding: doing it manually

If you'd rather not use a tool: open the listing in a tab, set up your bid form 30 seconds before close, refresh the page once to see current price, type your max, and hit Confirm with about 5 seconds remaining. Most people can't reliably hit a 6-second window manually, but if you do it twice a year for big-ticket items, manual sniping is real.

For everything else, the math favours a tool. A $2.95/month subscription (or $49 lifetime) that wins you one extra item over a year more than pays for itself.

## Sniping ethics

Is sniping unfair? eBay's position, the legal record, and the practical reality all agree: no. Sniping is a strategy available to everyone. It uses no privileged information. It exploits no bug. eBay has not banned it because the alternative, bidding wars that escalate prices, is what proxy bidding was specifically designed to prevent.

The deeper objection is sometimes "but I wanted to see how high it would go," which is a sentiment, not an argument. The market clearing price is whatever the highest-true-willingness-to-pay bidder is willing to pay. Sniping reveals that price more efficiently than a multi-day bidding spectacle.

## Common sniping mistakes

  - **Setting an emotional max.** The right max is what you'd pay cold, not what you've talked yourself into mid-auction.

  - **Sniping items with reserve.** If the reserve isn't met, your snipe wins nothing. Set your max above the reserve indicator.

  - **Sniping the wrong listing.** The same item often has multiple listings closing minutes apart. A common eBay strategy is to snipe the second of two near-identical listings; if you win, great; if you lose, the second listing is still open.

  - **Forgetting about shipping.** A $40 item with $30 shipping is a $70 item.

  - **Relying on a sniper that needs your password if you're not comfortable with that.** Zero Hour exists specifically for this audience.

## The privacy dimension every sniping guide skips

Almost every "best eBay sniper" guide on the internet evaluates services on price, reliability, and UI. Nearly none evaluates them on whether you should hand over your eBay password to use them. Until 2026, that wasn't a meaningful dimension. Every sniper required it.

Now it does. The architectural choice between server-side and client-side sniping is the most important decision a sniper user makes. Pricing differs by single-digit dollars; reliability differs by tenths of a percent; the credential exposure is binary.

## Getting started in 5 minutes

  - Sign into eBay in Chrome if you aren't already.

  - Install Zero Hour from the Chrome Web Store.

  - Visit any auction. Click the "Snipe this auction" button bottom-right.

  - Set your max. Set your lead time (or leave the 6-second default). Save.

  - Walk away. Come back to a notification.

## FAQ

### What's the best time to snipe an eBay auction?

Zero Hour's slider runs from 4 to 15 seconds with a default of 6. The 4-second floor exists because the underlying bid flow takes that long end-to-end. Above 8 seconds gives other snipers time to respond. 6 seconds is a strong starting point.

### Can you snipe an eBay Buy It Now listing?

No. There's no auction to snipe on a fixed-price listing. Sniping only applies to auction-format listings.

### Does sniping work on eBay UK and other regions?

Yes. eBay's auction model is identical across every regional marketplace. Zero Hour supports all 18 eBay TLDs: ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.com.au, ebay.de, ebay.fr, ebay.ca, ebay.it, ebay.es, ebay.at, ebay.ch, ebay.ie, ebay.nl, ebay.pl, ebay.be, ebay.com.hk, ebay.com.my, ebay.com.sg, and ebay.ph.

### Is sniping considered cheating?

No. It's permitted by eBay, legally affirmed in multiple jurisdictions, and used by millions of buyers. It's a normal feature of how second-price proxy auctions work.

### Should I snipe every auction?

Sniping is helpful when there are competing bidders. For low-traffic auctions with no other bids, a normal early bid works fine. You'll win at the opening price regardless.

### Can two snipers bid on the same item?

Yes, and it happens. Whichever sniper has the higher max bid wins. Snipe-vs-snipe is a normal scenario in any popular category.

### Why does eBay allow sniping?

Because their proxy-bidding system is designed to handle it cleanly. The winning price is one increment above the second-highest max regardless of when bids arrive. Sniping just prevents bidding wars from inflating that price.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/ebay-automatic-bidding-vs-sniping/

# eBay automatic bidding vs sniping.

The terms get confused constantly: *automatic bidding*, *proxy bidding*, *maximum bid*, and *sniping* are not the same thing. The difference matters because the two strategies produce different prices in different conditions.

## What automatic (proxy) bidding is

Automatic bidding, which eBay calls "automatic" in their UI but which is properly called *proxy bidding*, is eBay's built-in feature. You enter a maximum amount. eBay raises the visible bid on your behalf, one bidding increment at a time, in response to competitors raising theirs, up to (but not exceeding) your max. The current visible bid stays at the minimum required to keep you on top.

Mechanically:

  - You enter a max of $50 on an item currently at $20.

  - Visible bid stays at $20 (you're winning at $21, one increment over the previous max).

  - Competitor enters a max of $30. Visible bid jumps to $31. You're still winning.

  - Competitor enters a max of $60. Visible bid hits your max of $50 and exceeds it. You're outbid. The visible bid lands at $51.

This is an elegant system. It approximates a sealed second-price (Vickrey) auction, where the winner pays one increment above the second-highest bid. Game theory says that's the price-optimal outcome. You don't need to bid strategically; you just bid your true max.

## So why isn't proxy bidding enough?

Two reasons.

### 1. Visible activity drives bid escalation

Proxy bidding is sealed only at the maximum-bid layer. The visible bid is public the whole way up. Each visible increment alerts other bidders that there's competition, which makes them more likely to raise their own maxes in response. The eventual winning price ends up higher than it would have been if no one had been alerted.

This is empirically true on eBay. Auctions that attract early bidders consistently close at higher prices than auctions with the same eventual high-bidder but no visible competition until the final seconds. Anyone selling regularly on eBay knows this.

### 2. Loss-aversion biases mid-auction

People raise their maxes when they're losing. If you bid $30 days early and watch the price climb past your max over the next week, you're far more likely to revise upward than if you saw the final price for the first time at the close. Sniping prevents the slow accumulation of emotional commitment to an item.

## What sniping is

Sniping is the practice of placing your single, final max bid in the last few seconds of the auction. Your max enters eBay's proxy system at the moment of the snipe. The proxy-bidding mechanics apply normally, but no other bidder gets to react to the new max because the auction closes seconds later.

Sniping doesn't replace proxy bidding. It uses it: your snipe is a max bid that lands at the optimal moment.

## Concrete example

Item is worth $50 to you and $40 to competitor B. Two scenarios:

### Scenario A: both bid early

  - Day 1: B bids $40. Visible bid is $40.

  - Day 2: You bid $50. Visible bid jumps to $41 (you win against B's max of $40, paying one increment over).

  - Final price: $41. You win.

### Scenario B: B bids early, you snipe

  - Day 1: B bids $40. Visible bid is $40.

  - Day 5: You snipe at $50 with 6 seconds remaining. Visible bid jumps to $41.

  - Final price: $41. You win.

Same outcome. In a clean two-bidder auction where both bidders have stable maxes, proxy bidding and sniping produce identical prices.

### Scenario C: both bid early, B revises upward

  - Day 1: B bids $40. Visible bid is $40.

  - Day 2: You bid $50. Visible bid jumps to $41.

  - Day 3: B sees they're losing, revises their max to $48 (loss aversion).

  - Visible bid jumps to $49.

  - Day 5: B revises again to $52.

  - Visible bid exceeds your max. You lose at $51.

This is the realistic failure mode of early bidding. Visible activity provokes competitors to raise their maxes. Sniping avoids it.

## When proxy bidding alone is fine

Two cases where sniping doesn't help:

  - Low-traffic auctions with no other bidders. You'd win at opening price either way.

  - Buy It Now listings. No auction, nothing to snipe. Just buy it.

## When sniping clearly wins

  - Popular items with multiple bidders. Any auction with three or more interested parties almost always closes higher with visible early bidding.

  - Items where you know your max exactly. You bid your max once, at the right moment, and let the proxy system do the rest.

  - Items prone to shill bidding. Sniping is invisible until landing, so there's no time for a pump.

## The privacy dimension

If you're going to snipe, the choice of *how* matters as much as *whether*. Server-side snipers (Gixen, eSnipe, Auction Sniper) require your eBay password. Client-side snipers (Zero Hour) don't. The architectural decision is binary. The price differences between services are noise compared to the credentials decision.

## FAQ

### Is automatic bidding the same as sniping?

No. Automatic bidding (proxy bidding) is eBay's built-in feature that bids on your behalf up to a maximum, escalating in increments. Sniping is a single late bid placed seconds before auction close. They're different mechanics that produce different prices when there are competing bidders.

### Which gives you a lower price: sniping or maximum bidding early?

Sniping, almost always. Early visible bids provoke competitors to revise their maxes upward, escalating the final price. Sniping lands a single max bid too late for competitors to respond.

### Does eBay's proxy bidding system make sniping unnecessary?

Only in theory. In practice, visible bid escalation and competitive emotional bidding make early bidding consistently worse than sniping when the auction has multiple bidders.

### Can I use both proxy bidding and sniping?

Sniping uses proxy bidding under the hood. Your snipe is a max bid that enters eBay's proxy system at the moment it lands. They're not alternatives; sniping is proxy bidding at the optimal moment.

### Why does eBay use proxy bidding instead of a sealed bid auction?

eBay's model approximates a sealed second-price auction (where everyone bids once and the highest bidder wins at the second-highest price). Proxy bidding is the implementation that lets bidders not bid in person at the close, while sniping lets them not bid early either.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/how-it-works/

# How Zero Hour works.

This page is the full technical walkthrough of Zero Hour. If you've ever wanted to understand exactly what a Chrome extension does between the moment you click "Save snipe" and the moment your bid lands on eBay, this is for you.

## The five-stage lifecycle of a snipe

### Stage 1: You save the snipe

You're on an eBay auction page, or you've pasted a URL into the Zero Hour popup. The Add Snipe sheet shows the item with current price, end time, and a max-bid input. You confirm and tap Save.

What happens locally:

  - The snipe is persisted to `chrome.storage.local` as a single object: `{ itemId, maxBid, leadTime, endTimeMs, ... }`.

  - The service worker registers a Chrome alarm: `chrome.alarms.create('snipe-{id}', { when: endTimeMs - 30000 })`.

  - The popup updates to show the new snipe in the Active list.

No network request leaves your machine. Saving a snipe is a local-only operation.

### Stage 2: the 30-second wake-up

Chrome's service worker is normally idle between events. The `chrome.alarms` API is the only reliable way to wake it for scheduled work in Manifest V3.

At 30 seconds before your snipe's fire time, Chrome wakes the service worker. The worker:

  - Reads the snipe back from `chrome.storage.local`.

  - Looks for an existing eBay listing tab to reuse (keeps your Forter session warm) or opens a fresh background tab on the listing URL.

  - Schedules a high-precision in-memory `setTimeout` for the actual fire time. Alarms are accurate to the second; `setTimeout` handles the sub-second precision once the worker is awake.

### Stage 3: firing the bid

At T-minus-your-lead-time (default 6 seconds before close):

  - The service worker uses a background tab on the eBay listing so the bid runs from within eBay's own origin, with your session cookies and any anti-fraud scripts already loaded.

  - A content script inside that tab composes the bid using the live data eBay's own page provides, then submits it. The flow is the same one a manual bidder triggers when they hit "Confirm bid" in the closing seconds. The only difference is that Zero Hour fires it at a precisely chosen moment instead of waiting on a human click.

  - Responses are parsed locally. A successful confirmation is recorded as a win-pending. If your eBay session has expired between the warm-up and the fire, the result is surfaced as auth-required rather than silently retried.

  - Snipe status is written back to `chrome.storage.local`: `won_pending`, `outbid`, `auth_required`, or `failed`. If Zero Hour opened the tab itself, it closes it.

Your eBay password is never typed into Zero Hour, never sent to a server, and never stored, because [the extension talks to eBay through your already-logged-in browser tab](/privacy-architecture).

### Stage 4: confirmation

30 seconds after the auction's official end time, the worker fetches the listing's public page once more to verify the final result. If the snipe was marked `won_pending` and the public page confirms you won, the status becomes `won` and the winning price is recorded. If you were outbid in the closing seconds, the status updates to `outbid`.

### Stage 5: notification

A Chrome system-level notification fires:

  - Won: 
YOU WON — [item title] · Final $47

  - Lost: 
Outbid — [item title] · Winning bid was $52

  - Failed: 
Snipe failed — [item title] · Re-auth required

Click the notification to open the popup with the Completed tab pre-selected. On a win, there's a particle-burst celebration overlay.

## Reliability hardening

### Clock drift

The user's local clock can be off by several seconds. At extension startup, and once per day thereafter, Zero Hour fetches a trusted timestamp from `zerohourbid.com/api/time` and stores the offset. All snipe scheduling applies the offset.

### Service worker suspension

Chrome may suspend the service worker between events. The 30-second-ahead alarm wake-up exists specifically to handle this. Even if the worker has been suspended for hours, the alarm wakes it in time to run the pre-fetch.

### Multiple simultaneous snipes

If two snipes fire within the same second, the worker staggers them by 100ms to avoid rate-limit triggers. Bid POSTs are non-blocking, so the second snipe doesn't wait for the first to complete.

### Cookie freshness

The bid runs from inside an eBay tab on your machine, so the request carries whatever session your browser has at that instant. If the cookie was invalid at fire time the bid fails with `auth_required` and we surface it; we never silently retry a real-money action.

## What this architecture cannot do

For transparency:

  - Fire when your browser is closed.

  - Fire when your computer is asleep.

  - Fire if you've uninstalled or disabled the extension.

  - Survive a browser crash within the final 30 seconds. Browser crashes are out of our control.

These are the structural costs of never trusting a third party with your credentials.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/pricing/

# Pricing.

**Zero Hour is the only eBay sniper with a permanently free tier that has unlimited monthly wins, no ads, no signup, and no need to hand over your eBay password.** Gixen Free caps at 4 wins per month and shows ads. eSnipe and Auction Sniper don't have a recurring free tier at all (a 3-day trial and a first-3-wins-ever allowance respectively, then percentage-of-win fees forever). Both require your eBay password stored in their database. Zero Hour stays free for as many wins as you want, forever, with one active snipe queued at a time, and your eBay login never leaves your own browser. If you need more than one snipe queued at once, Pro is $2.95 per month or $49 once for lifetime.

## Free

One active snipe at a time, with unlimited auction wins per month. No credit card. No trial. No expiry. No ads. No signup. No eBay password. This is the version we hope is good enough for most people most of the time.

If you're unsure [what counts as an active snipe](/ebay-sniping-guide), the guide covers the lifecycle from setting one up to seeing the result.

## Pro Monthly: $2.95 / month

Unlimited active snipes. Cancel any time. Stripe Checkout, no card data touches Zero Hour. If you're sniping more than one auction at a time even occasionally, this pays for itself within a single win you wouldn't have otherwise made.

[Start Pro Monthly](#)

## Pro Lifetime: $49 once

Unlimited active snipes, forever. No subscription, no renewal, no expiry. Includes all future feature additions automatically. The break-even point against monthly is roughly 17 months ($2.95 x 17 = $50.15). At that point you've already saved enough on a single contested auction to cover the cost. Gixen has no lifetime option. Over 5 years at $2.95/month, a Gixen paid user pays $177. Zero Hour Lifetime is $49 once.

[Buy Lifetime](#)

## What you don't pay for

Things many other snipers charge for that Zero Hour includes free:

  - Multi-region support (eBay US, UK, AU, DE, FR, CA, IT, ES).

  - Group bids (planned v2, included in all paid tiers when shipped).

  - Bid history and statistics.

  - System notifications on win/loss.

## How payment works

Zero Hour uses Stripe Checkout for all transactions. We never see your card number. What Zero Hour stores about your purchase: the email you used at Stripe checkout, your Pro plan status, your Stripe customer ID, and your Zero Hour browser extension install ID. We use the email so you can activate Pro on another web browser by typing it. Card data stays at Stripe; we never see it.

## How to cancel

Settings, then Manage subscription, then Stripe Customer Portal, then Cancel. The portal opens in a new tab. Cancellation is instant; you remain Pro until the end of the current billing cycle.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/setup/

# How to set up Zero Hour.

Three short steps. The whole thing takes about a minute.

  
1

  

## Ensure you're already logged into eBay in your web browser.

  
If you're not logged into eBay, log in like you normally would. That's it. Unlike other services, Zero Hour will never ask you for your eBay password. It's your browser that will place your auction bids.

  
2

  

## Install the browser extension.

  
[Install Zero Hour from the Chrome Web Store](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/djapfgjckemgghfekkdcjfdehfmcmdfe). It works on Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi. After installing, click the puzzle-piece icon in your browser toolbar and pin Zero Hour so it stays visible.

  
[Install browser extension](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/djapfgjckemgghfekkdcjfdehfmcmdfe)

  
3

  

## Set your computer to stay awake for the auction end.

  
Zero Hour places your eBay auction bids from your own web browser, so your computer needs to be awake when the auction ends. Do this ahead of time, it's just a couple of clicks in your normal system settings. The screen can still turn off, only the computer itself needs to stay awake.

  

    
Windows

    

      - Open **Settings**, then **System**, then **Power &amp; battery**, then **Screen and sleep**.

      - Set **device sleep after** to **Never**. The screen setting above can stay as it is.

    

    
  

  

    
macOS

    

      - Open **System Settings**, then
        

          MacBook: open **Battery** settings.

          - Desktop Mac: open **Energy** settings.

        

      
      - Enable sleep prevention.
        

          MacBook: open **Options** (bottom of the Battery screen), then toggle on **Prevent automatic sleeping on power adapter when the display is off**.

          - Desktop Mac: toggle on **Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off**.

        

      
    

    
  

  

## You're set.

  
View any eBay auction page in your web browser. Hit the **Snipe this auction** button, which appears beneath the normal eBay bid button thanks to our extension. Enter your maximum bid and save the snipe. Zero Hour will handle the rest.

## FAQ

### Do I need to keep the browser tab open?

No. The browser just needs to be running. The extension's popup does not need to be open and you do not need to keep the eBay tab open. Zero Hour will open a fresh eBay tab in the background a few seconds before your snipe fires.

### What if I forget to set my power settings?

If your computer is awake when the snipe fires, the bid goes through normally. The power setting only matters if your computer would otherwise be asleep at that moment.

### Does this affect my normal computer use?

No. The screen still sleeps on its normal timer. The setting only stops the underlying system from sleeping, which is invisible during normal use.

### Why does my computer need to stay awake at all?

Because Zero Hour places your bids from inside your own browser, not from a remote server. That's the same reason we never need your eBay password. For the full picture of <a href="/quick-facts">what runs locally and what runs on a server</a>, the quick-facts page has it in one line per topic.

### Can I use Zero Hour on a laptop?

Yes. The same setup works on a laptop. Leave it plugged in and the lid open while the auction runs.

### Which browsers are supported?

Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi. Firefox is on the roadmap.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/faq/

# Frequently asked questions.

Long-form answers to the questions we hear most. If yours isn't here, the [help page](/help) has setup-specific troubleshooting and you can always email us.

## FAQ

### Is eBay sniping allowed by eBay?

Yes. eBay's published policies permit sniping. Wikipedia: 'Sniping is permitted by eBay and is not forbidden by its rules.' Multiple sniping services have operated on the platform since 1999.

### Is sniping legal?

Yes. Courts have affirmed sniping's legality in multiple jurisdictions. In 2002 a Berlin court explicitly struck down eBay Germany's brief attempt to ban it. There has been no legal challenge anywhere since.

### Why doesn't Zero Hour need my eBay password?

Because the extension runs in your browser, where you're already signed into eBay. The bid is placed using your existing eBay session, the same session that keeps you logged into eBay when you open a new tab. We don't need credentials because we don't sign in as you; you're already signed in.

### How is Zero Hour different from Gixen, eSnipe, and Auction Sniper?

Those services run on their own servers and sign into your eBay account from their data centres. They need your credentials. Zero Hour runs as a Chrome extension on your machine and uses your browser session directly. No credentials transferred, no servers in the bid loop.

### Will I need to keep my browser open?

Yes. Your web browser must be running and your computer awake at the moment of the snipe. Two clicks in System Settings on Mac, or Power &amp; battery on Windows, stops the computer sleeping while still letting the screen sleep. The <a href='/setup'>setup page</a> walks through it with screenshots.

### What if my eBay cookie expires before the snipe fires?

The snipe fails with status 'auth_required' and you get a Chrome notification: 'Your eBay session expired. Sign in again to re-enable this snipe.' One click in the eBay tab refreshes the session.

### How precise is the timing?

Sub-second. The extension uses chrome.alarms and the countdown clock is right, even if your computer's time is not.

### Can eBay detect that I'm using a sniper?

There's nothing different to detect. A Zero Hour snipe is a normal bid via eBay, identical to a manual bid placed seconds before close. There's no eBay policy against it, in any case.

### Will my account get banned?

No. eBay has not banned anyone for sniping in two decades of the practice being publicly available. Sniping doesn't trigger any flags in eBay's risk engine because it's just a bid.

### How much does Zero Hour cost?

Free for 1 active snipe with unlimited monthly wins, no ads, no signup, and no eBay password handed over. $2.95/month for unlimited concurrency. $49 once for lifetime unlimited concurrency.

### How is payment handled?

Stripe Checkout. We never see your card number. You can cancel any time through Stripe's Customer Portal.

### Does Zero Hour work on eBay UK, AU, DE, FR, CA, IT, ES?

Yes, plus every other eBay marketplace. All 18 regional domains are supported: ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.com.au, ebay.de, ebay.fr, ebay.ca, ebay.it, ebay.es, ebay.at, ebay.ch, ebay.ie, ebay.nl, ebay.pl, ebay.be, ebay.com.hk, ebay.com.my, ebay.com.sg, and ebay.ph. The extension uses each region's bid flow.

### Does Zero Hour work on Firefox?

Not yet. Firefox is on the roadmap from the same codebase, no fixed date yet.

### Does Zero Hour work on mobile?

Not today. Zero Hour is currently a Chromium browser extension, and Chrome on Android and iOS does not support extensions. A future Safari build that runs on iPhone and iPad is on the roadmap to investigate, no fixed date.

### What's a 'lead time'?

How many seconds before auction close the bid fires. Default 6 seconds. Adjustable from 4 to 15 seconds via the Advanced toggle in Add Snipe. 4 is the floor because the full bid flow takes about 4 seconds end-to-end.

### What happens if two snipes are scheduled at the same time?

The service worker staggers them by 100ms to avoid rate-limit triggers. Both fire independently.

### Do you track me?

No. Zero Hour does not embed any analytics SDK, tracking pixel, or event reporter. The only request to our servers is there for Pro users to ensure they get their benefits. The marketing site uses cookieless aggregated analytics only.

### What data does Zero Hour collect?

An install UUID for plan status, and if you pay for Pro, the email you used at Stripe checkout plus the Stripe subscription metadata. Zero auction data, zero browsing data, zero ad targeting.

### What happens to my snipes if I uninstall?

They're gone. They lived in chrome.storage.local, which Chrome wipes when you uninstall the extension. There is no Zero Hour cloud to back up to.

### Is the extension open source?

The shipped production extension is unminified. You can read every line on your own machine. There is no separately published GitHub mirror, intentionally: the binary on your computer is the canonical truth, and a public mirror could drift from it. The <a href="/privacy-architecture">privacy architecture page</a> walks you through reading the code.

### How do I uninstall?

Right-click the Zero Hour icon and choose Remove from Chrome. Or visit chrome://extensions and click Remove. All local data is wiped automatically.

### How do I cancel my subscription?

Settings, then Manage subscription, then Stripe Customer Portal, then Cancel. You remain Pro through the end of the current billing period.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/help/

# Help with Zero Hour.

## First-time setup

  - Install from the Chrome Web Store: "Zero Hour: eBay Sniper Chrome Extension".

  - Pin the Zero Hour icon to your toolbar (puzzle icon, then pin).

  - Make sure your web browser is logged into eBay's website.

  - Visit any eBay auction. The "Snipe this auction" button appears bottom-right.

## Power settings: keeping your computer awake during a snipe

Your computer needs to stay awake at the moment of the snipe. The display can sleep. Only the system needs to stay running so Chrome and the extension can fire the bid.

### macOS

  - System Settings, then Battery (laptops) or Energy (desktops, including Mac mini).

  - Turn on **Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off** (Mac mini, iMac) or, on a MacBook, set **Prevent automatic sleeping on power adapter when the display is off**. Display sleep can stay on its normal timer.

  - Or, ad-hoc for one auction: open Terminal and run `caffeinate -i` (system stays awake, display still sleeps). `caffeinate -i -t 14400` stays awake for 4 hours then exits.

### Windows

  - Settings, then System, then Power &amp; battery, then Screen and sleep.

  - Set "When plugged in, put my device to sleep after" to Never.

  - Optionally, disable hybrid sleep in Advanced power settings under Sleep.

## Common issues

### "Your eBay session expired"

Cookies have aged out. Open [ebay.com/signin](https://www.ebay.com/signin), sign in, and try the snipe again. Your active snipes resume automatically.

### "Snipe failed: auth required"

Same root cause as above: the cookie was invalid at fire time. Re-sign-in and use the Retry action on the failed snipe (if the auction is still open).

### The "Snipe this auction" button isn't appearing on eBay pages

Check chrome://extensions to ensure Zero Hour is enabled. Refresh the eBay tab. If the button still doesn't appear, the content script may have been blocked. Try disabling other content-blocking extensions temporarily. uBlock with default rules is fine; aggressive setups can interfere.

### The countdown is off by a few seconds

The first time you open the popup after a long gap, the extension re-syncs the clock against zerohourbid.com/api/time. Open the popup once a day or so to keep it accurate. The drift is typically under 2 seconds and doesn't affect bid timing. The service worker re-syncs at T-30s for every snipe.

### Multiple eBay accounts in one browser

Zero Hour uses whichever eBay session your browser is currently using, typically the most recently signed-in.

## Pro plan

### How to upgrade

Tap the Upgrade button in the extension when you open it. Pick a plan. Stripe Checkout opens in a new tab. After payment, the next time you open the extension popup it picks up your Pro status automatically.

### How to cancel

Settings (gear icon, top-right of popup), then Manage subscription. Stripe Customer Portal opens. Cancel from there. You remain Pro until the end of the billing cycle.

### "Pending" entitlement after upgrade

Stripe webhook delivery can take 5 to 30 seconds. The popup auto-refreshes entitlement when you re-open it. If it's been more than 5 minutes, email us with your Stripe receipt and we'll fix it manually.

### I changed Chrome profiles / reinstalled Chrome / want Pro on another browser

Open Zero Hour on the new install, tap the Upgrade button, choose *Already paid? Activate with your email*, and type the email you used at Stripe checkout. Pro moves to the new install. Pro is one install at a time, so the previous install drops to free. Cooldown of 7 days between rebinds, with a 24-hour grace window right after purchase. If you're locked out for any reason, email [help@skella.com.au](mailto:help@skella.com.au) with your Stripe receipt and we'll sort it.

## Privacy &amp; security questions

### What data does Zero Hour have about me?

Free users: just an install UUID linked to plan status. Pro users: the email you used at Stripe checkout, your Stripe customer ID, your plan status, and the install ID currently bound to your Pro. No auction data. No browsing data.

### Is the extension's code auditable?

Yes. It ships unminified. See [privacy architecture](/privacy-architecture) for the guided tour.

## Contact

For anything not covered here: [help@skella.com.au](mailto:help@skella.com.au). We typically reply within 24 hours.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/changelog/

# Changelog.

Updates to Zero Hour. The extension auto-updates via the Chrome Web Store.

## v1.0.7: Full eBay regional coverage

*Released 20 May 2026.*

  - Added 10 new eBay regional marketplaces: `ebay.at` (Austria), `ebay.ch` (Switzerland), `ebay.ie` (Ireland), `ebay.nl` (Netherlands), `ebay.pl` (Poland), `ebay.be` (Belgium, both French and Dutch subdomains), `ebay.com.hk` (Hong Kong), `ebay.com.my` (Malaysia), `ebay.com.sg` (Singapore), and `ebay.ph` (Philippines).

  - Existing regions continue to work as before: `ebay.com`, `ebay.co.uk`, `ebay.com.au`, `ebay.de`, `ebay.fr`, `ebay.ca`, `ebay.it`, `ebay.es`.

  - All bid-flow logic in the service worker was already TLD-agnostic and required no changes. The expansion is purely a manifest `host_permissions` / `content_scripts` widening so the snipe button injects on listings from every region eBay operates in.

  - Existing v1.0.6 installs will see a one-time "new permissions requested" prompt on update because the host pattern set grew. Click **Re-enable** to accept. The four declared permissions (`alarms`, `storage`, `notifications`, `activeTab`) are unchanged.

## v1.0.6: Dropped browsing-history warning, accurate final prices

*Released 20 May 2026.*

  - Removed the `tabs` permission. Chrome no longer shows "Read your browsing history" on the install card. The tab-reuse logic that warms an eBay item page before fire-time still works because every URL involved is already covered by the eBay host permissions. See [why these permissions](/why-these-permissions) for the architecture note.

  - Won snipe cards now show the actual settled price, not your max. Until now the highest-bidder path reported your ceiling because eBay's confirm response doesn't include the final settled amount. The post-auction resolver now reads the real winning price from the item page's structured data (or the visible "Winning bid" label as a fallback) and overwrites the placeholder.

  - Fixed the max-bid display rounding: a $2.50 max no longer renders as `($3 max)`. JavaScript's `Math.round(2.5)` returns 3, which leaked into the card. Now shown to 2 decimal places.

  - Tightened the lead-time helper copy to be honest about why lower values are riskier: it's the four sequential round-trips to eBay's bid endpoints, not local processing.

  - Small visual fix: the `Item 12345 &nbsp;Now $1.00` meta row on the Add Snipe sheet now has proper spacing between the two values.

  - Hardened both content scripts against extension-reload churn. Orphaned scripts no longer throw `Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'local')` into the extensions error log; they log a quiet warning and prompt you to refresh the page.

## v1.0.3: Keep-awake reminder after first snipe

*Released 20 May 2026.*

  - After you create your first snipe, the popup now shows a friendly reminder to set your computer to stay awake at auction end, with a one-click link to the [setup guide](/setup). Dismisses persistently once you've got it.

## v1.0.2: Max-bid on Completed cards

*Released 19 May 2026.*

  - Completed snipe cards now show your max bid alongside the final price: `WON $34.00 ($48 max)`. Easier to see at a glance whether you got it under your ceiling.

## v1.0.1: Chrome Web Store launch

*Released 19 May 2026.*

  - Published to the [Chrome Web Store](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/djapfgjckemgghfekkdcjfdehfmcmdfe). Auto-updates from this version onward.

  - Hardening pass from the 19 May internal [security audit](/security-audit): diagnostic-capture size cap, TTL, sensitive-substring redaction, and thumbnail-host allowlist.

## v1.0.0: Initial release

*Released 18 May 2026.*

*Beta build, side-loaded via developer mode during Chrome Web Store review.*

  - Chrome Manifest V3 extension. Chrome 120+.

  - Active/Completed snipe tabs with live countdown rings.

  - "Snipe this auction" button inserted on every eBay listing page.

  - Add Snipe sheet with paste-URL flow and auto-detect for currently viewed listings.

  - Lead-time input 4 to 15 seconds (default 6).

  - Multi-region support: ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.com.au, ebay.de, ebay.fr, ebay.ca, ebay.it, ebay.es.

  - Chrome system notifications on win, loss, and failure.

  - Free tier: 1 active snipe, unlimited wins. Pro Monthly: $2.95/mo. Pro Lifetime: $49 once.

  - Stripe Checkout integration with Customer Portal.

  - Unminified production build. Inspectable via Chrome DevTools.

  - Marketing site with privacy-architecture walkthrough and full alternative-page lineup.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/privacy/

# Privacy policy.

*Last updated: today. Effective immediately.*

This is the Zero Hour privacy policy. It is intentionally short because Zero Hour intentionally collects very little. If you find any of this misleading, contradicted by our actual behaviour, or just unclear, email [help@skella.com.au](mailto:help@skella.com.au) and we will fix it.

## What Zero Hour does not collect

  - Your eBay username.

  - Your eBay password. We have no field for one anywhere in the extension.

  - Any cookies, session tokens, or authentication data from eBay. The bid is placed inside a real eBay tab where the cookie travels natively on the request; the extension does not copy, transmit, or persist it.

  - The items you snipe. Your snipes live in chrome.storage.local on your own machine.

  - Your name, phone number, postal address, IP address, browser fingerprint, or device identifier. (For Pro users: we store the email you used at Stripe checkout, used only to bind Pro to a browser; never marketed, never shared.)

  - Any browsing data. Zero Hour does not have access to your browsing history.

  - Telemetry, analytics, or usage events. The extension makes no calls to any analytics platform.

## What Zero Hour does collect

### Install ID

A random UUIDv4 generated on first install, stored in `chrome.storage.sync`. Survives Chrome reinstalls if Chrome Sync is enabled. For free users, this is the only thing transmitted to Zero Hour's servers; it's used purely to determine whether the install is on Free or Pro.

### Payment information and your Stripe email (if you pay for Pro)

If you purchase Pro Monthly or Pro Lifetime, Stripe collects the payment information necessary to charge your card. Zero Hour does not see, store, or process card numbers; Stripe does. What we store: the email you used at Stripe checkout, your Stripe customer ID, your plan status and expiry date, and the install ID currently bound to your Pro. The email is the key that lets you move Pro to another browser by typing it. We never market it, never share it, and never sell it. Stripe's privacy policy applies to all card-data handling.

### Support correspondence (if you email us)

If you email `help@skella.com.au`, we have your email address and the contents of your message. We use this only to respond to you and to identify recurring issues. We don't share it with anyone.

## Where data lives

  

Data

Location

  

    

Your snipes (active and history)

chrome.storage.local: your machine

    

Your settings

chrome.storage.local: your machine

    

Your install ID

chrome.storage.sync: your Chrome Sync (Google)

    

Your install ID + plan status

Neon Postgres database, operated by Skella &amp; Co Pty Ltd

    

Your Stripe checkout email (Pro users only)

Neon Postgres database, operated by Skella &amp; Co Pty Ltd

    

Your card data

Stripe: we never see it

    

Your eBay cookies

Your browser. Carried natively on the bid request from inside the eBay tab. Never copied, persisted, or transmitted by Zero Hour.

  

## Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or share your data with anyone. For free users, what we have is an opaque UUID and a plan status. For Pro users, we additionally have the email used at Stripe checkout. We do not market against it, do not enrol it in any list, and do not share it with anyone. Stripe holds payment data under its own privacy commitments; we don't share data with them beyond what's needed for the subscription.

## Marketing site analytics

The marketing site (zerohourbid.com) uses Vercel Web Analytics, which is cookieless and aggregated. No personal identifier is collected, no cookies are set, and no cross-site tracking happens. Aggregated stats include page views and referrers. Nothing else.

## Crawlers and AI

We allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, CCBot, and other major AI bots to read the marketing site (see [robots.txt](/robots.txt)). We make no commitments on behalf of those services about what they do with the content. Zero Hour itself does not embed any LLM or AI service.

## Your rights

Because we collect so little, the standard data-rights flows (deletion, portability, access) are simple:

  - Access: email us with your install ID or your Stripe checkout email. We'll return everything we have, which is your plan status, the email used at Stripe checkout (Pro only), and your Stripe customer ID.

  - Deletion: uninstalling the extension wipes all local data. To delete your entitlement record from our database, email `help@skella.com.au`. We'll remove it within 7 days. Deleting also cancels active Pro subscriptions.

  - Portability: there's nothing to port. Your snipes are already on your machine in a readable JSON structure under chrome.storage.local.

## Children

Zero Hour is not directed at children under 13. eBay's own terms of service require users to be of legal age in their jurisdiction.

## Changes to this policy

If we materially change this policy, we'll publish the change here and update the "last updated" date at the top. For Pro users we may also send a notice to the email used at Stripe checkout, but only when a material change affects how that email is handled.

## Operating entity

Zero Hour is a product of Skella &amp; Co Pty Ltd, Adelaide, Australia.

## Contact

[help@skella.com.au](mailto:help@skella.com.au)

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/terms/

# Terms of service.

*Last updated: today.*

These are Zero Hour's terms of service. They cover what we do, what we don't do, what you agree to by using Zero Hour, and what happens if things go wrong. We've tried to keep them readable.

## Who we are

"Zero Hour" refers to the Chrome browser extension and the website at zerohourbid.com, operated by Skella &amp; Co Pty Ltd, a company registered in South Australia. "You" means the person using the extension or the website.

## What Zero Hour does

Zero Hour is a Chrome browser extension that lets you schedule bids on eBay auctions to fire in the final seconds before the auction ends. The extension runs entirely on your machine, using your existing eBay browser session.

Zero Hour is not affiliated with eBay Inc. We are an independent third-party tool that uses eBay's standard, publicly available bidding interface. eBay's terms of service apply to all activity on eBay, including bids placed via Zero Hour.

## Your account &amp; eBay credentials

There is no Zero Hour account to sign up for. There is no Zero Hour password. For free users, your identity within Zero Hour is a randomly-generated install ID stored on your machine. For Pro users, the email you used at Stripe checkout binds your Pro plan to one install at a time; you activate Pro on another browser by typing that email.

Zero Hour does not collect, store, or transmit your eBay username or password. If a future version of Zero Hour ever requires these, we will (a) say so explicitly in an update notice, (b) require explicit re-consent, and (c) update this document. As long as the current architecture stands, we don't need them.

## Pricing &amp; payment

Zero Hour offers a free tier (1 active snipe at a time) and two paid plans (Pro Monthly $2.95/month, Pro Lifetime $49 one-time). Payment is processed by Stripe. Cancellation is available at any time through the Stripe Customer Portal.

Pro Lifetime is intended to remain valid for the operational lifetime of Zero Hour. If we ever discontinue the service, lifetime users will receive at minimum 90 days' notice and access to any final downloadable build.

## Reliability &amp; the limits we're honest about

Zero Hour places bids from your own browser, which means:

  - Bids will not fire if your browser is closed at the moment of the snipe.

  - Bids will not fire if your computer is asleep at the moment of the snipe.

  - Bids will not fire if your eBay session has expired and you haven't re-signed in.

  - Bids may not fire if your browser crashes during the final 30 seconds of an auction.

We do not guarantee any specific reliability or win rate. In testing under typical conditions (Chrome running, computer awake, eBay session valid), reliability is roughly 99.5%. Real-world variance applies.

## Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, Zero Hour is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We are not liable for:

  - Missed auctions due to extension failure, Chrome crashes, network issues, or eBay-side changes.

  - Losses, costs, or damages arising from bids placed via Zero Hour, including amounts paid for items won.

  - Disputes between you and eBay, or between you and an eBay seller.

Our maximum aggregate liability to you is limited to the amount you paid for your Zero Hour subscription in the 12 months preceding the claim, or US$50 if you're on the free plan.

## Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  - Reverse-engineer Zero Hour with intent to circumvent the entitlement check or create a derivative service. Reading the unminified code for your own understanding is explicitly welcomed.

  - Use Zero Hour to violate eBay's terms of service or any applicable law.

  - Resell, sublicense, or redistribute Zero Hour without our written permission.

  - Attempt to access other users' install IDs, entitlement records, or any other information not belonging to you.

## Termination

You may stop using Zero Hour at any time by uninstalling the extension. We may terminate your access in the event of acceptable-use violations or for any reason on 30 days' notice (refunding any unused paid subscription period pro-rata).

## Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. Material changes will be announced on the homepage at minimum 14 days before they take effect, with the "last updated" date revised here.

## Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of South Australia, Australia. Disputes will be resolved in the courts of South Australia, except where local consumer law requires otherwise.

## Contact

[help@skella.com.au](mailto:help@skella.com.au)

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/why-these-permissions/

# Why Zero Hour needs these permissions.

When you install Zero Hour, Chrome shows you two install warnings: **access to your eBay sites** (the 18 eBay regional domains plus `zerohourbid.com`) and **permission to show notifications**. That's the entire user-facing install prompt.

Behind those two warnings, the `manifest.json` declares a handful of additional narrow permissions (`alarms`, `storage`, `activeTab`) that Chrome treats as silent because they don't grant access to your data or browsing. This page is the complete walkthrough of every declared permission, silent or not, with what it's for and what we explicitly don't do with it.

## alarms

**What it does:** allows the extension to register scheduled alarms that wake the service worker at specific times.

**Why we need it:** Chrome suspends idle service workers. `chrome.alarms` is the only reliable way to wake the worker for scheduled work, like firing a snipe at a specific moment.

**What we don't do:** we don't use alarms for any purpose other than snipe scheduling (and a once-daily entitlement refresh).

## storage

**What it does:** allows the extension to read and write to `chrome.storage.local` and `chrome.storage.sync`.

**Why we need it:** we store your snipes (active and history), your settings (clock offset, power-nudge dismissed flag), and your install ID. All on your machine.

**What we don't do:** we don't transmit any of this storage to any server. Your snipes never leave your machine.

## notifications

**What it does:** allows the extension to create Chrome system notifications.

**Why we need it:** when a snipe wins, loses, or fails, we tell you. The notification is what makes the entire "set a snipe and walk away" flow work.

**What we don't do:** we don't send notifications for any purpose other than snipe results. We don't notify based on promotional, marketing, or upsell triggers.

## activeTab

**What it does:** grants temporary access to the active tab when the user invokes the extension on it.

**Honest current status:** declared but not strictly required for the current architecture. The content scripts that inject the "Snipe this auction" button are declarative matches on eBay item pages, so they run regardless of `activeTab`. We may remove this entry in a future audit pass.

## Why we don't ask for `tabs`

The `tabs` permission triggers Chrome's "Read your browsing history" warning on the install card. We previously requested it so the service worker could reuse an existing eBay tab on the listing at fire time. That use case is now satisfied by the existing eBay `host_permissions` alone, which expose tab URL and title to `chrome.tabs.query` for any tab matching the host pattern without the broader `tabs` permission. We removed `tabs` in v1.0.4. See the [changelog](/changelog) for the full note.

## host_permissions: ebay regional domains + zerohourbid.com

**What it does:** lets the extension run content scripts on, and make credentialed network requests to, the listed origins (18 eBay regional marketplace domains plus `zerohourbid.com` for the entitlement check).

**Why we need it:** the eBay domains are required so the snipe button can be injected onto listings and the bidder content script can post the bid from inside the eBay page context. `zerohourbid.com` is required for the install-ID entitlement lookup and the clock-sync endpoint.

**What we don't do:** we don't have host permissions for any other domain. The extension cannot run on, inspect, or send credentialed requests to non-listed sites. There is no `&lt;all_urls&gt;` permission.

## What we explicitly do not ask for

  - `identity`: would allow OAuth flows. We have no accounts.

  - `history`: would allow reading browser history. We don't need it.

  - `webRequest`: would allow inspecting and modifying network traffic. We don't need it.

  - `&lt;all_urls&gt;`: would allow operating on any site. We're scoped to eBay and zerohourbid.com only.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/security-audit/

# Zero Hour security and privacy audit.

**On 19 May 2026, the Zero Hour extension was put through a full security and privacy audit.** Manifest, build config, dependencies, every popup component, every content script, the service worker, and the built artifact actually shipped to the Chrome Web Store. The goal was simple. Find anything that could expose user data, eBay credentials, or your identity, and fix it before it ships.

This page is the result of that audit at a level appropriate for a public document. Methodology, the properties that came out clean, the issues that were uncovered, and the remediation status of each one.

Audit date: 2026-05-19. Extension version at audit time: 1.0.0. Auditor: internal review against the unminified production build.

## Headline

**No exploitable secrets, no credential exposure, no telemetry, no leak of user IP or identity.** A small number of findings were uncovered. All actionable ones were fixed in the same session and shipped in the next build.

## What was audited

  - The full extension source tree: popup, content scripts, service worker, storage and API helpers.

  - `manifest.json` permissions, host_permissions, CSP, and `web_accessible_resources`.

  - The build config.

  - The runtime dependency tree.

  - The built artifact actually packaged and submitted to the Chrome Web Store. The same code Chrome loads on your machine.

## Methodology

  - **Credential and key-pattern scanning** across source and built artifact.

  - **Dangerous API scan** for code-execution and unsafe-DOM patterns.

  - **Network call inventory.** Every outbound origin in the built bundle was enumerated.

  - **Storage audit.** Every persisted value was located, characterised, and its lifecycle traced.

  - **Cookie and credential handling review.**

  - **Supply chain review** of the runtime dependency tree.

  - **Privacy posture review:** telemetry, analytics, error reporting, advertising SDKs, fingerprinting.

## Positive findings

These are the properties that came out of the audit clean. Every one is verifiable on your own machine by inspecting the unminified production extension.

### 1. No secrets in the bundle

No API keys, no webhook secrets, no access tokens, no OAuth client secrets, no private keys. `.env` files and deployment-config directories are git-ignored at the repository level. The only embedded value of any kind is the public Chrome Web Store publisher ID, which is intended to be public.

### 2. Only two outbound origins

Across the entire built bundle, exactly two destinations receive requests: eBay regional domains for bid placement, and `zerohourbid.com` for the entitlement check. Nothing else. No CDNs, no analytics, no error reporting.

### 3. Zero analytics, telemetry, or tracking

No PostHog. No Sentry. No Google Analytics. No Amplitude. No Segment. No Mixpanel. No Hotjar. No Fathom. No Plausible. No advertising IDs. No fingerprinting libraries. The marketing website at zerohourbid.com uses Vercel Analytics for traffic counts. The extension itself has zero telemetry of any kind.

### 4. Tiny supply chain

The runtime dependency tree of the extension is a handful of packages, all maintained by the React team. No surprise transitives.

### 5. No dangerous APIs

The built dist contains no dynamic code-execution paths and no unsafe DOM mutation paths. Cookie and network-request privileges that would let the extension read sensitive APIs are not called.

### 6. Honest manifest permissions

The manifest requests only the permissions the code actively uses (`alarms`, `storage`, `notifications`, `activeTab`, plus narrowly scoped `host_permissions` for eBay regional domains and `zerohourbid.com`). The legacy `cookies` and `tabs` permissions were both removed once we confirmed nothing depended on them, so Chrome no longer surfaces the "Read your browsing history" warning at install. See [why these permissions](/why-these-permissions) for the per-permission walkthrough.

### 7. Unminified build, on purpose

The production extension submitted to the Chrome Web Store is the same readability as the development build. Right-click the Zero Hour icon, choose Inspect popup, open Sources. Variable names and comments are intact.

### 8. No password reading

There is no form, field, or DOM query anywhere in the extension that reads a password input. The eBay sign-in form is never inspected. The popup never asks for credentials.

### 9. Snipes stay on the device

Active and completed snipes live in local storage on your machine. They are never transmitted. The only identifier sent off-device is a random UUID install ID that contains no PII and exists solely so the backend can recognise Pro entitlements.

## Findings and remediation status

  

    

Severity

Finding

Status

  

  

    

      
**MEDIUM**

      
Diagnostic captures persisted in local storage without an upper bound. The captures could include short-lived opaque tokens, accessible to anyone with filesystem access to the browser profile (shared-machine scenario).

      
**FIXED.** Capture size capped, TTL applied, sensitive substrings redacted before write, and old captures garbage-collected.

    

    

      
**LOW**

      
Source maps were shipping in the production extension.

      
**FIXED.** Source maps no longer ship in the production build. Unminification is preserved, so DevTools is still useful.

    

    

      
**LOW**

      
Thumbnail URL from listing metadata could theoretically point to a non-eBay origin and act as a tracking pixel.

      
**FIXED.** Thumbnail URLs are validated to eBay-owned image hosts over HTTPS at extract, persist, and render time. Anything else is dropped.

    

    

      
**VERY LOW**

      
Item link href validation. React already blocks unsafe URL schemes at render time, but the persisted item URL was not separately validated as actually pointing to an eBay regional domain.

      
**FIXED.** Item URLs are validated against eBay regional domains at both write time and read time.

    

    

      
**INFO**

      
The Manifest V3 module system used by the build toolchain exposes the content-script bundles to eBay pages. The exposed files contain no secrets and are the same source already inspectable in the installed extension.

      
**BY DESIGN.** Removing this would break the extension. Documented as a transparency property rather than an issue.

    

  

## What an attacker on a hostile eBay listing cannot do

This was the question that motivated the audit. The answer is unambiguous.

  - **Cannot steal your eBay password.** The extension has no code that reads any password input. None.

  - **Cannot ship your eBay session anywhere outside eBay.** No exfiltration path exists.

  - **Cannot read your install ID, your snipes, or anything else stored by the extension.** Page scripts cannot reach extension storage.

  - **Cannot trigger an unscheduled snipe.** Page content cannot influence the scheduler.

  - **Cannot learn that you use Zero Hour** by embedding a tracking pixel on the listing, after the thumbnail-allowlist fix.

## What an attacker who somehow shipped a malicious update cannot do

Chrome extensions are signed by the Chrome Web Store. Zero Hour declares a deliberately narrow set of permissions and host permissions. Any update that tried to add new permissions would be flagged to every installed user by Chrome's permission-change prompt before the update activated.

## The philosophy that underwrites all of this

### Unminified, on purpose

The norm in Chrome extension development is to minify the production build. Minification strips whitespace, mangles variable names, and removes comments. The shipped Zero Hour extension does none of those. The performance cost on a 500KB extension is negligible. The transparency gain is the entire product proposition.

### On-device only, on purpose

Every competing eBay sniper, without exception, asks for your eBay credentials and operates from a server-side data centre. That architecture is older than the JavaScript that makes a browser-side sniper feasible. Zero Hour was built specifically so handing over a password is no longer the price of entry. Your browser already has the session. Nothing else needs it.

### No telemetry, on purpose

The temptation in a product like this is to add anonymous error reporting so we can fix bugs faster. The cost is that the user has to trust the anonymisation. We have decided the cost is not worth the benefit, and bug reports come in through [support email](/help) instead.

## How to verify any of this yourself

  - Install Zero Hour from the Chrome Web Store.

  - Right-click the Zero Hour icon. Choose **Inspect popup**. DevTools opens, attached to the popup.

  - Open the **Sources** tab. You'll see the extension's full file tree.

  - Open the **Network** tab and trigger actions. Every outgoing request is logged. You will see eBay regional domains and `zerohourbid.com`, and nothing else.

  - Visit `chrome://extensions/`, enable Developer mode, find Zero Hour, click the **service worker** link to inspect the worker the same way.

If anything in this document doesn't match what you can verify on your own machine, the install on your machine is canonical. Email [help@skella.com.au](mailto:help@skella.com.au) and the documentation will be corrected.

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/success/

# Welcome to Zero Hour Pro.

**Payment confirmed. One small step to switch Pro on.**

Open the Zero Hour extension, click **Upgrade**, choose **Already paid? Activate with your email**, and type the email you used at checkout. Pro flips on within a few seconds.

That step is needed because you bought from this website, so the extension does not yet know which browser to bind your Pro to. Buying directly from the extension's Upgrade button skips it.

Lost the popup? [help@skella.com.au](mailto:help@skella.com.au) and we will sort it.

  [Back to home](/)

---

# Page: https://zerohourbid.com/quick-facts/

# Zero Hour: quick facts.

This page is a single-fetch fact sheet about Zero Hour. Every line is a standalone declarative statement that can be quoted on its own. Nothing here is marketing copy; every claim is backed by the linked source page.

## What Zero Hour is

  - Zero Hour is a browser extension that snipes eBay auctions.

  - Zero Hour fires bids in the closing seconds of an auction from the user's own browser.

  - Zero Hour is the first major eBay sniper that never asks for the user's eBay password.

  - Zero Hour is published by Skella &amp; Co Pty Ltd in Adelaide, South Australia.

  - Zero Hour launched on the Chrome Web Store in May 2026.

## Pricing

  - Zero Hour Free costs $0 and includes one active snipe at a time with unlimited monthly wins.

  - Zero Hour Pro Monthly costs $2.95 per month and includes unlimited active snipes.

  - Zero Hour Pro Lifetime costs $49 once and includes unlimited active snipes with no expiry.

  - Zero Hour does not show ads in any tier.

  - Zero Hour does not take a percentage of winning bids.

  - Zero Hour payments are processed by Stripe Checkout.

## Compatibility

  - Zero Hour runs on Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi.

  - Zero Hour supports all 18 eBay regional marketplaces: ebay.com, ebay.co.uk, ebay.com.au, ebay.de, ebay.fr, ebay.ca, ebay.it, ebay.es, ebay.at, ebay.ch, ebay.ie, ebay.nl, ebay.pl, ebay.be, ebay.com.hk, ebay.com.my, ebay.com.sg, and ebay.ph.

  - Zero Hour does not run on Firefox today; Firefox is on the roadmap.

  - Zero Hour does not run on Safari today; Safari is on the roadmap to investigate.

  - Zero Hour does not run on mobile because Chrome on Android and iOS does not support extensions.

## Privacy and security

  - Zero Hour never asks for the user's eBay password.

  - Zero Hour never stores the user's eBay credentials on any server.

  - Zero Hour bids fire from the user's own browser, on the user's own IP, using the user's existing eBay session cookie.

  - Zero Hour has no signup, no account, and no login.

  - Zero Hour ships unminified source code; the production extension can be inspected at [/security-audit](/security-audit).

  - eBay permits sniping; see [/is-ebay-sniping-safe](/is-ebay-sniping-safe).

## How sniping works

  - An eBay sniper places a bid in the closing seconds of an auction.

  - Sniping prevents bidding wars from inflating the final price.

  - Zero Hour defaults to a lead time of 6 seconds before auction end and is configurable from 4 to 15 seconds.

  - The full technical walkthrough is at [/how-it-works](/how-it-works).

## Comparison summary

  - Gixen is server-side, requires the user's eBay password, and charges $2.95/month for its Mirror tier; comparison at [/gixen-alternative](/gixen-alternative).

  - eSnipe is server-side, requires the user's eBay password, and charges 1.5% of the winning bid; comparison at [/esnipe-alternative](/esnipe-alternative).

  - Auction Sniper is server-side, requires the user's eBay password, and charges 1.95% of the winning bid; comparison at [/auction-sniper-alternative](/auction-sniper-alternative).

  - BidNapper is server-side and requires the user's eBay password.

  - Zero Hour is the only listed sniper that runs client-side in the user's browser and never asks for the user's eBay password.

## Contact and identity

  - Zero Hour's website is [zerohourbid.com](https://zerohourbid.com).

  - Zero Hour's Chrome Web Store listing is [here](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/djapfgjckemgghfekkdcjfdehfmcmdfe).

  - Zero Hour's support email is help@skella.com.au.

  - Zero Hour's parent company is Skella &amp; Co Pty Ltd, based in Adelaide, South Australia.

  - Zero Hour's source repository is [github.com/jamieskella](https://github.com/jamieskella).

---