Privacy policy

The short version

Tools on Free Tool Arena run entirely in your browser. We don’t collect the numbers, text, or other inputs you enter into them. We don’t require accounts. We don’t sell anything to data brokers. We do show ads via Google AdSense, which sets cookies and uses tracking technology — details below, with instructions for opting out.

Who we are

Free Tool Arena is operated as a small independent publisher. For all privacy requests, corrections, deletions, or questions about this policy, contact hello@freetoolarena.com. We’ll respond within 30 days as required by GDPR and CCPA. The site uses no single-server backend that stores user inputs — see “What we collect” below for the full list of what data we actually have access to.

What we collect

Server logs: our hosting provider records standard access logs — IP address, browser user agent, the page requested, referrer, and timestamp. These are kept for up to 30 days for abuse detection and performance monitoring, then rotated. They are not used to build behavioral profiles.

Analytics: we use a privacy-respecting analytics tool to understand which pages are useful. It collects aggregate page-view counts, approximate country, referrer source, and device type — not individual user behavior. No analytics cookies are set on your device.

Local storage: some tools save your preferences (e.g., a saved currency pair, a draft note in the scratchpad) to your browser’s localStorage. This data lives on your device, never reaches our servers, and you can clear it anytime via your browser’s clear-site-data option.

Google AdSense and ads

We display ads via Google AdSense to keep the site free. AdSense is a Google-operated ad-serving service that uses cookies and similar tracking technologies (web beacons, pixels) to:

• Serve ads based on your prior visits to this site and other sites on the internet.
• Measure ad performance (impressions, clicks, viewability).
• Detect ad fraud and prevent malicious ads.

Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve personalized ads to you based on your visits to this site and other sites on the internet. The advertising identifier (cookie or device ID) is what makes that targeting possible.

You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google’s Ads Settings. You can also opt out of third-party vendor cookies at aboutads.info/choices (US) or youronlinechoices.com (EU). Opting out doesn’t remove ads — it just means the ads you see are non-personalized.

For visitors in the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, we use Google’s consent-management tooling (the Google-funded Consent Management Platform, or a compatible alternative) to obtain GDPR-compliant consent before personalized ads are loaded. If you decline consent, you’ll see non-personalized ads only — using contextual signals (page topic) rather than your behavioral profile.

Cookies and similar technologies

We use the following categories of cookies and similar technologies:

• Strictly necessary: cookies needed for the site to function (e.g., dark-mode preference, language preference). These are first-party only and don’t require consent under GDPR.
• Advertising: cookies set by Google AdSense and its partners to serve and measure ads. These are subject to consent in EEA/UK/Switzerland and to opt-out rights in the US (CCPA “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information”).

We don’t set our own analytics cookies. We don’t use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or remarketing pixels.

Third-party services and data sharing

A handful of tools call public APIs directly from your browser to fetch live data — those requests never touch our servers. Each third party has its own privacy policy:

• Frankfurter (currency exchange rates from the European Central Bank).
• ipify and ipapi.co (IP address lookup tools).
• Nager.Date (public holiday database).
• Have I Been Pwned (password breach checker — uses k-anonymity; only the first 5 characters of a SHA-1 hash are sent, never the password itself).
• Travelpayouts Drive (AI-powered travel-affiliate widget on travel-related pages only; sets analytics cookies and reads visible page content; excluded from password tools, JWT tools, scratch notes, and /embed/* routes).

We don’t sell or share your personal information with data brokers. Google AdSense’s advertising activities are governed by the consent and opt-out mechanisms described above.

Your rights — GDPR (EEA, UK, Switzerland)

If you’re located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, GDPR (or the equivalent UK GDPR) grants you the following rights with respect to personal data we process:

• Right of access: ask what personal data we hold about you. Honestly, almost certainly nothing — we don’t maintain user profiles. But you’re welcome to request a copy.
• Right to rectification: ask us to correct any inaccurate data.
• Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”): ask us to delete data we hold about you.
• Right to data portability: receive a copy of any data you provided in a machine-readable format.
• Right to object: object to processing based on legitimate interests, including direct marketing (we don’t do direct marketing).
• Right to withdraw consent: where processing is based on consent (e.g., personalized ads), withdraw it at any time via Google’s Ads Settings.
• Right to lodge a complaint: file a complaint with your local Data Protection Authority. EU DPAs are listed at edpb.europa.eu.

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@freetoolarena.com. We’ll respond within 30 days as required by GDPR.

Your rights — CCPA / CPRA (California)

California residents have specific rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA):

• Right to know: request what personal information we’ve collected about you.
• Right to delete: request deletion of personal information we hold.
• Right to correct: request correction of inaccurate personal information.
• Right to opt out of sale or sharing: while we don’t sell personal information in the conventional sense, CCPA defines “sharing” broadly to include cross-context behavioral advertising. To opt out of such sharing via Google AdSense, visit Google’s Ads Settings and disable ad personalization. We also recognize the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal — if your browser sends GPC, we treat it as an opt-out request.
• Right to non-discrimination: we won’t deny service or charge different prices for exercising these rights.

To exercise CCPA rights, email hello@freetoolarena.com. We’ll verify your request and respond within 45 days.

Children’s privacy

The site is not directed at children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13 in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). For visitors under 16 in the EEA, GDPR-K applies and we require verifiable parental consent for any data collection beyond what’s strictly necessary. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact hello@freetoolarena.com and we’ll delete it.

Data security

The site is served over HTTPS with HSTS enabled. We don’t maintain a backend database for user inputs — there’s nothing to breach in that sense. Server logs are stored on encrypted infrastructure provided by our hosting partner. We don’t process payment information; the site has no paid features.

International data transfers

The site is hosted on infrastructure with global content delivery, so your request may be served from a server near your location. Server logs may be stored in the United States or other jurisdictions where our hosting provider operates. For EEA visitors, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) for international data transfers as a transfer mechanism approved by the European Commission.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes meaningfully, we’ll update the “last updated” date at the top and, for material changes, post a notice on the homepage for at least 14 days. Continued use of the site after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Contact for privacy questions

For all privacy-related questions, GDPR/CCPA requests, or to report a privacy concern, email hello@freetoolarena.com. See our contact page for general inquiries.