// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
Win-V combo from Windows on Ubuntu
A small GNOME Shell extension that brings the useful idea behind
Windows’ Win+V panel to Ubuntu 26.04—without a daemon,
an X11 helper, telemetry, or a network service.
WinV keeps a compact, searchable history of clipboard text and images.
It also includes offline emoji and Unicode symbol pickers, keyboard
navigation, pinning, editing, private mode, and an optional Super+V
shortcut.
This is the version I use myself, and for me it is already just fine.
I am sharing it because it may be useful to somebody else—not because
it is trying to become a giant clipboard product.
The extension listens for clipboard ownership changes through GNOME
Shell instead of polling. Ordinary history stays in memory and vanishes
when Shell ends. Only pinned items are saved locally, in a file restricted
to your user account. Selecting an item restores it to the clipboard and
can optionally ask Mutter to send Ctrl+V to the previously focused app.
A first installation may require logging out and back in before GNOME
Shell discovers the extension. The supported target is Ubuntu 26.04,
GNOME Shell 50, and Wayland.
Feel free to fork WinV, add whatever you find useful, simplify things,
update it for your setup, fix rough edges, or send a pull request. There
is no grand product roadmap to protect. The only strong preference is
that changes keep clipboard data local and treat it as sensitive.
Bug reports and documentation improvements are welcome too. If your
version goes in a different direction, that is exactly what forks are for.