79 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
79 lines
7.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Privacy"
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description: "What CoreDesktop, its installer, its website and its error reports collect, and what Federated Computer does with it."
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sections:
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- type: hero
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compact: true
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eyebrow: "Last updated November 8, 2026"
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title: "Privacy."
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subhead: "CoreDesktop doesn't watch what you do. There's no telemetry and no tracking. We only receive what your machine has to send to download CoreDesktop and its updates, and a log when you choose to send us one. This website counts its visitors, anonymously and on our own server."
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visual: false
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- type: text
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id: summary
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kicker: "In short"
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headline: "What reaches us, and when."
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body: |
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This policy covers Federated CoreDesktop: the scripts installed on your machine, the installer at `federated.sh`, this website, and the error reports you can send us. It's provided by Federated Computer, Inc. ("we").
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- **Nothing is collected in the background.** CoreDesktop has no telemetry or usage statistics. This website counts visits with Plausible, which we run ourselves; it sets no cookies and doesn't identify you.
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- **Downloads are seen by our servers.** When you install CoreDesktop, update it, or it checks for an update, your machine connects to our servers, which see its IP address, as any server does.
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- **Error reports are your choice.** If an install or update fails, CoreDesktop asks whether to send us the log. Nothing is sent unless you say yes, and you can read it first.
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- **We don't sell or share your data** with anyone for advertising or any other purpose.
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- type: text
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id: website
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kicker: "This website"
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headline: "Plain pages, counted anonymously."
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body: |
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coredesktop.computer is a set of static pages. It sets no cookies and loads nothing from other companies: its fonts and images are served from the site itself.
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To see which pages are read and how people find them, the site uses [Plausible Analytics](https://plausible.io/data-policy), running on our own server at `plausible.federated.computer`. When you open a page, it records the page's address, the site that linked you here, your browser, operating system and device type, and the country your IP address is in. It doesn't store your IP address, and it can't follow you across sites or from one day to the next. The results are only ever seen as totals, and we don't share them with anyone. If your browser or an extension blocks the script, the site works just the same. You can get your own private Plausible instance at [federated.computer](https://federated.computer).
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Links to other sites, such as Gitea, Arch Linux or a project's home page, take you to those sites, under their own policies.
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- type: text
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id: installing-and-updating
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kicker: "Installing and updating"
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headline: "What our servers see."
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body: |
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Installing CoreDesktop downloads the installer from `federated.sh` and CoreDesktop itself from our Gitea server, `gitea.federated.computer`. Afterwards, `update` and `refresh` download the latest version from Gitea, and a background check asks Gitea whether there's a newer version: a few minutes after you log in, then every four hours.
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Like any web server, ours see each connection's IP address and time, what was requested, and the name of the program making the request (such as `git` or `wget`). Nothing that identifies you or your machine beyond that is sent. We use these server logs only to run and protect the servers, and keep them for at most 30 days.
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Most of what CoreDesktop installs comes from elsewhere: Arch Linux and its mirrors, the Arch User Repository, Flathub, GitHub and the projects' own sites. Your machine downloads from those directly, so they see its IP address under their own policies, and we receive nothing from them.
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- type: text
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id: error-reports
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kicker: "Error reports"
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headline: "Only when you say yes."
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body: |
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When an install or update fails, CoreDesktop offers to send its log so we can work out what went wrong and fix it. It never sends one without asking, and never asks when there's no one at the terminal. You can also send a log yourself with `report`. [How reports work](/utilities/#report).
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**What's sent.** The output of the install or update that failed, CoreDesktop's version, the kernel's version, the names of the steps that failed, and the versions of your [sibling projects](/siblings/), by name and version only.
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**What's taken out first, on your machine.** Your user name, your machine's name, your home folder's path, email addresses, IP addresses and Tailscale machine names are replaced with placeholders before anything is sent. The log can still contain other things that appeared in the output, such as the names of packages, of files outside your home folder, or of servers you use. Press `v` when asked, or run `report --view`, to read exactly what would be sent.
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**Where it goes.** The report goes to our server at `federated.sh`, which keeps a copy for up to 90 days, so none is lost if something fails along the way. It's then filed as an issue in a private repository on our Gitea server, which only the Federated Computer people working on CoreDesktop can read. We keep it there for as long as we need it to understand and fix the problem.
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**Your IP address.** To stop anyone flooding us with reports, the server counts how many come from each address. It keeps addresses for that in memory only, for at most a day, and doesn't store them with your report or in its logs. Our web server's ordinary logs see the connection, as described [above](#installing-and-updating).
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**How we use reports.** Only to find and fix problems in CoreDesktop and its sibling projects. We may use AI tools, such as Anthropic's Claude, to help read a report and work out a fix. We only use AI services under terms that don't let the provider train its models on what we send them.
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- type: text
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id: other-services
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kicker: "Other services"
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headline: "What you connect yourself."
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body: |
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Some things CoreDesktop sets up connect to services that aren't ours, and only when you set them up: AI assistants such as Claude Code, Tailscale, Bitwarden, and the apps you install. They follow their own privacy policies. `configure` connects your machine to your own [Federated Core](https://federated.computer), which is your server, not ours; nothing about that connection is sent to us.
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- type: text
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id: your-choices
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kicker: "Your choices"
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headline: "Ask us anything, or ask us to delete it."
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body: |
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Email [privacy@federated.computer](mailto:privacy@federated.computer) with any question about this policy. To have a report deleted, or to find out what we hold about you, send us its report ID (it's printed when the report is sent) and we'll take care of it.
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If we change this policy, we'll update it here and change the date at the top. A change to what CoreDesktop sends would come with an update to CoreDesktop itself, so you can read it in its [source](https://gitea.federated.computer/Federated_Computer/coredesktop) first.
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---
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