Privacy

What stays on your device

Stored in your browser’s local storage, not in cookies, and never sent anywhere except where noted below. Clearing your browser data for this site removes all of it.

byeye.identity.v1

Your player id, the name shown on the boards, and a random secret generated in your browser. The secret is what proves a score is yours. We store only a hash of it, never the value. If you signed in with Google, also the address of the Google account, so the site can show you which one: it is kept here, in your browser, and nowhere else.

byeye.queue.v1

Finished runs waiting to be sent, if a submission failed.

angled · halved · dropped · balanced · counted · timed .daily.v1

Your own results for each game, so the site knows which puzzles you have played, challenges included. Kept for 60 days, then swept automatically.

freehand.install.v1 · freehand.pwa.ios.first-open.v1

How many games you have finished for the home-screen suggestion, whether you dismissed it or installed the app, and whether this iPhone or iPad app storage has already counted its first opening. These stay on this device.

freehand.analytics.v1

Whether you allowed Google Analytics or switched it off, and when. Set only once you choose; after about thirteen months you are asked again.

halved.settings.v1 · dropped.settings.v1 · freehand.audio.v1

Your sound and reduced-motion preferences.

halved.tutorial.v1 · dropped.tutorial.v1

Whether you have already been shown the coached round.

What reaches the server

When you finish a daily and it is submitted to a leaderboard, plus a few smaller things: a tap on a share button, an arrival from a tagged link, how long a tab was open, and home-screen app measurements.

Your player row

An id, the name on the boards, a SHA-256 hash of your device secret, and the date it was created. The name is assigned automatically (an adjective and an animal) unless you change it.

Your score rows

Which game, which puzzle date, the score, and the raw inputs you made during the round: the dial angles, cut positions, called landings and so on. The inputs are kept because every score is recalculated on the server from them rather than trusted from your browser, and so any score can be audited later.

If you sign in with Google

Google’s id for your account (a number Google assigns, not your email address), linked to your player row; a hash of each signed-in browser’s secret; and a copy of your results for each game (the .daily.v1 records above), so your streak and your played games reach your other devices. Signing in happens on Google’s own page, under Google’s privacy policy. While it does, two cookies hold the sign-in’s progress for at most ten minutes, and are deleted once it is done. If the browser you sign in on already has a name, its scores join your account’s; where both played the same day, the account’s score stands.

Challenges

A challenge you make is its code, your player id and when you made it. Each game you play in one is kept like a score row: the game, the score and the raw inputs, against the challenge’s code instead of a date. Anyone with the link sees the names and scores of everyone who played it.

A tap on a share button

Which game it was on and whether the share sheet opened, the text was copied, or neither. That is the whole row: no player id, no address, nothing that could say who tapped. It exists so the site can tell whether sharing is used at all.

Home-screen app measurements

We count taps on the home-screen install button and whether they came from the menu or toolbar. When the browser reports an app installation, we count the event and whether it was on Android, iOS, or another platform. On iPhone and iPad, where installation is not reported, we count the first observed opening of the installed app in its storage instead. These rows carry no player id or address.

An arrival from a tagged link

If the link you followed carried a source tag (a utm_source, the way a post on Reddit or a tweet would), the tag is counted, and remembered in your browser so that your first finished game can be counted against it. The tag is the whole row: no player id, no address. It answers “did that post bring anyone who played?” and nothing about you.

How long a tab was open

The number of seconds this tab was actually on screen, sent when it is hidden or closed, under a random id the tab made up for itself and forgets when it closes. The id is attached to nothing else, not your player row, not a score, not your address, so the row says “someone spent four minutes” and cannot say who. The same report lists what the tab did, in order: the pages it showed (never a challenge’s code), which buttons were tapped, which games were started, how many rounds in, and which were finished; and whether this browser had been here before. Never what you answered or scored.

A hash of your IP address

Salted and hashed, never the address itself, used only to rate-limit name claims. Rows older than an hour are deleted on every request.

What is never collected

No email address, password, real name, phone number, location, contacts or device fingerprint. Signing in with Google shows the server your address only long enough to pass it back to your browser. The fonts are served from this domain, not from Google. There are two measurement scripts, Cloudflare’s and Google’s, both described below. No ad is served on this site today; advertising says what changes if that stops being true.

Who else is involved

The site is hosted on Cloudflare and its data is stored in a Neon Postgres database. Both keep standard server logs, which include IP addresses, under their own privacy policies. Apart from them, the two analytics services below, Listdle’s badge and the advertising platform named further down, nobody else receives anything.

The homepage shows a badge from Listdle, a site that lists games like these. It is an image loaded from listdle.com, so showing it sends Listdle what fetching any image does: your IP address and your browser’s name. It is sent without the address of the page it is on, sets no cookie and runs no script, and it loads only when it is on your screen.

Freehand uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count page views and how quickly pages load. It records which pages are visited, the referrer, and a coarse browser, device and country, and it does this without cookies, without storing anything on your device and without an identifier that follows you between visits. It never sees your board name, your scores or anything you type. Cloudflare’s policy is cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.

Google Analytics

Freehand also uses Google Analytics, to understand how many people play and how they find the site. It records the pages you visit, how long you stay, roughly where you are (country and city), your browser and device, which game you started or finished, and the home-screen app measurements described above. It never receives your board name, your scores or anything you type.

To recognise a returning visit it stores two cookies, _ga and _ga_SE7YCB92C2, for up to two years. In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland it stores nothing unless you accept on the banner that asks; until then Google receives only cookieless counts. Google’s policy is policies.google.com/privacy.

For this browser: allow Google Analytics or switch it off.

Advertising

No ad is served on Freehand today. The platform is Mediavine, which accepted the site; its policies are at mediavine.com/legal-and-privacy-center. Ads have not launched, and this section is here before the first one is, because the page above promises it would be.

What is live already is Mediavine’s script, in the head of every page on the site. It is the tag that will later run the auction, and it is installed now because that is how Mediavine checks a site before switching ads on. Loading it tells Mediavine what loading any script from anyone tells them: your IP address, your browser, and the address of the page it is on. It is not loaded on the wishlist review page, whose address carries a key, and it is not loaded at all outside the live site.

What exists so far is a file at /ads.txt, which names who is allowed to sell advertising against this domain. It is a text file served from here. Reading it sends nothing anywhere, sets no cookie and runs no script; its purpose is to stop anyone else selling ads in Freehand’s name.

When ads do run, two more things change, and this page will say so on the day rather than after it. Mediavine may store cookies to choose what to show and to count what was shown. And in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland it will ask first, through its own consent tool — until you accept, no advertising cookie is stored and anything shown is chosen without using you to choose it.

What will not change: no ad network will ever receive your board name, your scores, your suggestions or anything you type here.

Your control over it

Clearing this site’s data in your browser erases your identity, your history and your preferences. Be aware that it also erases the secret proving the board name is yours. If you signed in with Google, sign in again and the name, its scores and your history come back. If you did not, there is no recovery, and the name cannot be reclaimed.

To have a player row and its scores deleted from the server, email hello@freehand.fun with the name shown on your board. Signing out of a browser keeps your player for your next sign-in; to have the link to your Google account removed as well, ask the same way.

Changes

If Freehand adds any further third-party script, this page will say so before it happens, because several statements above stop being true the moment it does. The section on advertising is that promise being kept: it was written while the answer was still no.

Questions or deletion requests: hello@freehand.fun or see contact.