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Comment by janice1999 | Hacker News Reader

janice1999

https://help.niagaralauncher.app/article/27-privacy-policy

> Personal Data collected: Cookies, unique device identifiers, Usage Data and IDs (package names) from installed apps.

It sends a unique device identifier, your IP address and your app usage to Firebase. I understand why the developer would want crash reports but he gathers a lot of data on users.

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Niagara Launcher dev here - that's a valid concern, especially since launcher apps have access to a lot of personal data. We have created a document that outlines why we collect the data we do: https://help.niagaralauncher.app/article/109-privacy-policy-.... In short, we only collect data to power our features, verify if the user owns our premium version, improve our app, and for public research and statistics. If you have questions about specific pieces of data or anything else, please feel free to ask.

I believe in the good intentions of you and the team, but my advice here is to build a data management and retention process to be future proof.

What it means is you create a policy of non-ad-value data collection and very short identifiable data retention to avoid a future change of hearts (maybe you get big and acquired, maybe you bring a Zuckerberg to the team...who knows).

By doing this you not only protect the users data but you help the community trust your good intentions.

Good point. We use Firebase/Google Analytics for basic analytics (e.g., to analyze what features of Niagara Launcher are used the most and capture crashes). More sensitive data (e.g., the history of app launches if the user opts into our Digital Wellbeing Initiative) is only sent to our servers, hosted by Hetzner, to have complete control over the data. We delete it after 90 days. I don't know the retention periods of the Firebase and Google Analytics products off the top of my head; I'll discuss with our team how long they are and if anything persists longer than necessary. I'll also update the linked article afterward - thanks for the tip!

Good practice, just need to make it known.

Keep up the good work, I've used Niagara when I was at Android (on iOS now by my firm Rules) and I found it a very good value prop with an polished execution.

Thank you very much :)

Fortunately it can be disabled: Share error and usage reports - off; Digital Wellbeing Initiative - off; App Categorization - off

Seeing there is no business model (or did I miss that?), how likely is it that this app is sending installed app lists to 3rd party for appstore analytics like Data.ai and similar services? Something needs to pay the bills?

There is a business model: niagara premium.

You pay $30 with in app purchases to unlock much of the feature set

Rest assured, we don't sell your data. We're a small indie team solely financed by Niagara Pro, our in-app upgrade. I'm forever thankful to our community that it is enough to pay the bills and to develop the app further.

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