Privacy policy

What we collect

Nothing. Riptide has no server of its own. The app, the CLI and the extension do not send usage statistics, crash reports, identifiers or any other information to us or to anyone else.

Riptide does not use accounts, so there is no sign-up, no e-mail address and no profile.

What stays on your computer

The download list, its progress, your settings and a list of what you finished downloading (used to warn you about repeats) are kept in a local database in your user profile (%LOCALAPPDATA%\Riptide on Windows). Log files are written to the same folder; the addresses in them have their query strings removed and cookies, passwords and authorization headers are never written to them.

You can delete any of this at any time by removing downloads from the list or by deleting the folder.

Network requests Riptide makes

Riptide connects to the servers of the files you choose to download and, only when you use the features described below, to the services those features need.

The only request it makes on its own is an optional check for a new version against GitHub Releases (github.com), shortly after start and then every few hours. It sends nothing about you beyond what any web request carries, such as your IP address, and it can be turned off in Settings. GitHub's own privacy statement applies to that request. Update video support, in Settings, fetches the newest yt-dlp only when you press it.

Torrents. When you add a magnet link or a .torrent file, Riptide connects to the peers, trackers and DHT nodes of that torrent, which can see your IP address, as with any torrent client. Seeding is off by default.

Research. When you search, your words go to the open sources you left switched on (for example OpenAlex, arXiv, Wikimedia Commons and GitHub), and to Brave Search or a SearXNG instance only if you set one up. Riptide then fetches the small preview image of the results you are shown, from the site that hosts each one, and nothing else.

AI, optional and off until you set it up. The search text, the list of results and, only if you turn that on, the titles of up to 25 recent downloads go to the provider you chose, using your own API key. The key is kept in Windows Credential Manager and is never written to Riptide's settings, database or logs. There is no Riptide server in between.

The browser extension

The extension's only job is to hand downloads from your browser to the Riptide app on the same computer. It talks to the app through the browser's Native Messaging channel; it has no network access of its own, loads no remote code and contains no analytics.

When it hands over a download it passes the download address, the suggested file name, the referring page and the browser's user agent to the local app. Your rules and language choice are saved in the browser's extension storage and never leave the browser.

Cookies and sign-ins

Some downloads only work when you are signed in. For those, the extension reads the browser's cookies for the address being downloaded, and only that address, and passes them to the local Riptide app.

Riptide sends those cookies only to the same site they belong to, for that one download, and never to another site, including after a redirect to a different origin. They are kept in a separate local table while the download is in progress, are never written to logs, and are deleted as soon as the download completes or is removed.

This website

This site is a set of static pages hosted on GitHub Pages. It uses no cookies, no analytics and no trackers, and it loads nothing from third parties: fonts, images and scripts come from the same origin. The only thing it stores is your light or dark theme choice, in your own browser. GitHub may keep ordinary server logs under its own privacy policy.

The Feedback section links to GitHub issue forms. What you write there is public on GitHub and governed by GitHub's terms and privacy statement; this site never sees it.

Sharing, selling and children

Because we receive no data, we have nothing to share, sell or transfer, and nothing is used for advertising, credit decisions or any purpose other than your downloads. Riptide is not directed at children and collects no information from anyone.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version will be published on this page with a new date, and the history of the page is public in the source repository. Questions are welcome as an issue on GitHub at github.com/LayanJarrar1/Riptide/issues.