Privacy Policy

Speed Reader has no accounts, no cookies, and no analytics. Your documents are read and saved on your own device, and nothing you read is stored on any server. The only thing that ever leaves your device is a web article link, and only at the moment you paste one in yourself.

Who runs this

Speed Reader is a personal project built and maintained by Brookes & Watters, an individual in the United States. It is not a registered business and there is no company behind it — just one person publishing an access tool that they wanted to exist. There is no commercial interest in your data, and no way for anyone to make money from it here.

What stays on your device

When you open a .txt, .pdf, .docx, or .epub file (DRM-free only, see the Terms of Use), or paste text in directly, that content is processed entirely inside your own browser. The file is never uploaded to us and never passes through a server we control.

So that you can close the app and come back to exactly where you stopped, your browser keeps the following on your own device, in local browser storage (IndexedDB):

• Your most recent documents (up to eight), including the file contents themselves
• Your last-read position in each one
• Your settings — words per minute, fonts, sizes, and colors

This stays on your device until you clear it. It is not synced, backed up, or transmitted anywhere, and it cannot be read by us or by anyone else. If you install Speed Reader as an app so it works offline, the app's own files are also cached locally on your device.

What happens when you open a web article

One feature reaches the network: opening a web article by link. When you paste a link, it is sent to this site's article-extraction service, which requests that page, strips out the ads, images, navigation, and sidebars, and hands back just the article text to be loaded into the reader.

That link is used only to fetch the page you asked for, in that moment. It is held transiently in memory for the few seconds the request takes, and is not logged, not saved, and not stored afterward. No record of which articles you have read is kept anywhere outside your own device. The extracted text is returned straight to your browser and stored only there.

Other services involved

Two third parties are necessarily involved in delivering the app. Neither receives your documents or your reading activity:

• cdnjs, operated by Cloudflare — serves the open-source libraries that read PDF, DOCX, and EPUB files. Your browser requests these directly, so Cloudflare can see your IP address and browser type as part of serving them.
• Netlify — hosts the app and runs the article-extraction service, and as host handles ordinary request data such as IP addresses in order to deliver the site.

When you open an article by link, the extraction service contacts that article's website, which will see the request. That site's own privacy practices are its own, and this policy does not cover them.

What this app does not do

• No accounts, sign-ups, logins, or passwords
• No cookies and no tracking pixels
• No analytics, telemetry, or usage measurement of any kind
• No advertising and no ad networks
• No selling, renting, sharing, or trading of personal information — there is nothing collected to sell

Your choices and your rights

Because everything is kept locally, you are already in direct control of it. Clearing your browser's site data for Speed Reader permanently erases every saved document, reading position, and setting, immediately and completely. Uninstalling the installed app removes its offline cache. You never need to ask permission or submit a request to delete your data — you hold all of it.

Some U.S. states give residents rights to know about, access, correct, delete, or limit the sharing of personal information, and to not be discriminated against for exercising them. Those rights are honored here. In practice there is nothing held to disclose or delete, since no personal information is collected or retained on any server, but you are welcome to get in touch with any question or request.

Children

Speed Reader is not directed at children under 13, and no personal information is knowingly collected from them. Since the app collects nothing at all, there is nothing gathered from any user regardless of age.

Your agreement to this policy

The first time you open Speed Reader, and again whenever this policy or the Terms of Use are updated, the app asks you to read and agree to both before you can use it. If you decline, the app stays locked until you agree. Your agreement is recorded only on your own device, as the policy date you agreed to and the time you agreed, so the app knows not to ask again until the policy changes. It is never sent anywhere.

Changes to this policy

If the app changes in a way that affects any of the above, this page is updated, the date at the top changes with it, and the app asks you to agree to the updated policy the next time you open it. There is no mailing list to notify, because no email addresses are collected.

Contact

Questions, concerns, or corrections about this policy are genuinely welcome. Reach Brookes & Watters at brookesbabble@gmail.com.