What to Do When Your API Key Shows Abnormal Usage?

For example, if your key normally consumes only ten to twenty thousand characters per day, but suddenly consumes hundreds of thousands of characters one day, this is what we refer to as abnormal usage.

The key you enter in Saladict will only be saved in your browser, and Saladict will never send your key anywhere else under any circumstances. Unless Saladict has a bug, abnormal usage is almost certainly not caused by Saladict.

If your key shows abnormal usage, here are the actions you can take:

Immediately go to the platform associated with the key and delete or reset the key. For example, Baidu Translate can reset the key in the developer information, and Alibaba Translate can delete the key in the AccessKey management page.
Contact the platform's customer service and request recent usage records for the key (i.e., which texts the key has translated), preferably including IP addresses, User Agents, and other information.
After obtaining the usage records, check if they are texts you have translated. If the records also include IP addresses and User Agents, verify if they match your commonly used IP and User Agent.

Abnormal situations generally have the following possible causes:

You translated a large amount of text in another software. Saladict is not the only software that can use keys for translation. Recall if you have entered the same key in other software.
Your key has been leaked. The following situations might lead to key leakage:
- You entered unknown code in the browser console. While the key is not directly visible, code entered in the console can read and send the key.
- You did not download Saladict through official channels. Saladict's official download channels are exclusively those provided within the Saladict installation. Saladict downloaded through any other means may contain malicious code.
- You inadvertently shared the key publicly. I have seen someone share a key screenshot in a translation group; although the key information exported from Saladict is obfuscated, a technically skilled person can still parse out the key.
- Malware installed on your computer stole the key. For example, just as some software can modify browser homepage by tampering with extension code, malware can similarly modify extension code to steal keys.

If you confirm that none of the above reasons apply, you can send me your key usage records, and I will analyze whether it was caused by a Saladict bug.