Privacy Policy
Hafnium HN is a Hacker News reader for iPhone and Android, made by Hafnium Research. The short version: the app does not collect any information about you. Nothing you do in the app is sent to us.
What the app stores, and where
Everything the app keeps is stored on your device, in the app's own private storage. That includes:
- stories, comment threads and article text downloaded for offline reading;
- which stories you have opened (so new comments can be marked), and the stories you saved;
- the Hacker News username you enter, if any, and the replies found for it;
- your marks on hiring posts (starred and hidden), your saved hiring searches, and the users you blocked;
- your settings, such as theme, text size and refresh options.
We cannot see any of this. It is not copied to our servers, because we do not run any servers for the app.
Phone backups
Your phone's own backup may include the app's data: iCloud Backup on iPhone, or Android's backup to your Google account. Whether those backups happen is up to you and your phone's settings, and they are handled by Apple or Google under your account. We have no access to them.
What network requests the app makes
The app connects directly from your device to:
- The Hacker News API (hacker-news.firebaseio.com), run by Y Combinator on Google Firebase, for story lists, stories, comments and public user profiles.
- Algolia's Hacker News search (hn.algolia.com), for whole comment threads, search, the newest comments and a user's recent activity. What you type in Search is sent there to find results.
- news.ycombinator.com, for the pages that have no API: past front pages and the lists under More.
- Pages you choose to open. When you read an article, the app downloads the linked page directly from that website and keeps its readable text on your device. If "Download linked articles" is on (on Wi-Fi by default), it does this for the top stories in your offline lists too. Pages you open in the page viewer load directly from the website, with JavaScript off unless you turn it on for that site.
If you enter a Hacker News username, the app uses it only to read that user's public profile and recent comments from the services above, to find replies. No password is asked for or stored.
These requests go straight from your device to those services. Like any web request, they reveal your device's IP address to that service, which handles it under its own privacy policy. Requests for article pages identify the app with a standard mobile-browser identifier ending in HafniumHN/1.0. The Hacker News API, Algolia and news.ycombinator.com are reached over HTTPS; article pages use HTTPS where the site supports it.
Notifications
Notifications about replies and saved hiring searches are created on your device by the app's own refresh. They do not go through any server, and you can turn them off in Settings or in your phone's settings.
Reporting content and blocking users
When you report a story or comment, the app opens Hacker News, or an email to Hacker News's moderators or to us, in your own mail app; you choose whether to send it. Blocking a user only hides their posts on your device; nobody is told.
What we collect
Nothing. The app has no accounts, no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising and no tracking, and it includes no third-party services or SDKs that collect data. We do not sell, share or receive any personal information.
Deleting your data
Because everything is stored on your device, deleting the app removes all of its data. Inside the app you can also delete offline copies and limit how much is kept. Data in your phone's own backups is managed in your iCloud or Google account settings.
Children
The app is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect information from anyone, including children under 13.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted on this page with a new "last updated" date. If a future version of the app ever needed to collect any data, this page would say so clearly before that version is released.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Email info@hafnium.ltd.