Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what happens to your information when you use EZ Compress (ezcompress.org). The short version: your files stay on your device. We built the site so that we never receive them, and we collect as little else as we can.

If anything here is unclear, please ask us through the contact page.

Who we are

EZ Compress (ezcompress.org) is a free website with browser-based tools for compressing files, working with PDFs, converting formats and editing images. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" mean the operator of EZ Compress (ezcompress.org). "You" means anyone who visits or uses the site.

What we don't collect: your files

When you use a file tool, the file is processed entirely inside your browser on your own device. It is never sent to our server. That means:

• We cannot see the files you open or the results you download.
• We do not store copies of your files anywhere.
• We cannot recover a file for you if you lose it, because we never had it.

Once you close the tab, the file data held in your browser's memory is released.

Where processing happens

Our tools run in your browser using JavaScript, WebAssembly and the image and media codecs your browser already includes. The work happens on your device's processor and memory. This is why large files can take longer on slower devices, and why the tools keep working once a page has loaded, even if your connection drops.

Tools that send something outside your browser

A small number of tools need an outside service to do their job. These are the only tools that send any of your input beyond your browser:

• Grammar Checker: when you click Check, the text you entered is sent to the LanguageTool API (languagetool.org) so it can return suggestions. Nothing is sent until you click Check.
• Domain Age Checker: the domain names you enter are sent to rdap.org and to the registry RDAP servers responsible for those domains, so they can return registration dates.
• YouTube Tag Generator: your keyword is sent to YouTube/Google autocomplete only if you turn on "Include real YouTube search suggestions". With that option off, the tool works locally.
• Image Translator: text recognition (OCR) runs locally in your browser. If your browser has no built-in translator and you click "Open in Google Translate", the recognised text is sent to Google so it can be translated there.

Those services handle your data under their own privacy policies. If you'd rather not share that input with them, don't use those features.

Requests to content delivery networks (CDNs)

Some tools download open-source libraries, fonts or AI models the first time you use them. These come from public CDNs:

• cdnjs.cloudflare.com
• cdn.jsdelivr.net
• unpkg and Hugging Face (for AI models)
• Google Fonts (for the Outfit and Carlito fonts)

These requests fetch code and fonts. They do not carry your files. Like any web request, though, they reveal your IP address and basic browser details (such as the user agent) to the provider. Each provider handles that information under its own privacy policy.

Hosting and server logs

The site is hosted by Hostinger. Like most web hosts, its servers keep standard access logs when you load a page. These logs record your IP address, browser user agent, the URL requested and the time of the request. They are used for security, troubleshooting and keeping the site running. They do not contain your files, because your files never reach the server.

The contact form

If you use our contact form, we collect what you type into it: your name, email address, subject and message. We store this on our hosting server so we can read it and reply to you.

The form also includes a hidden anti-spam field, and we keep a hashed form of your IP address for a short time to limit how often the form can be submitted. We do not keep your IP address in plain form for this purpose.

We use your message only to respond to you and deal with your request. We delete messages when they are no longer needed, and in any case within 12 months.

Daily free runs

Every tool is free, and each visitor gets a daily allowance of free runs: currently 10 runs a day without an account and 20 with a free account. One run is one click of a tool's process button, so a batch of many files counts as a single run. The day resets at midnight UTC.

To count a run, your browser tells our server which tool you used. Your files are never sent to our server as part of this, and neither are their names or contents.

If you are not signed in

To count runs for visitors without an account, our server stores a salted hash of your IP address together with a counter for the day. For IPv6 addresses, the hash covers your /64 network rather than the full address, so a device cannot get around the count by switching addresses within its own network. We do not store your IP address in plain form for this purpose, and because the salt is kept secret, the hash cannot easily be matched back to an address.

These per-visitor counters store only the number of runs for the day, not which tools you used. Separately, we keep daily totals of runs for each tool across all visitors, which show us how much each tool is used and contain nothing that identifies you. Counters are deleted after 30 days.

If you create a free account

Accounts are optional. A free account needs an email address and a password, and you confirm the email address with a code we send you. For each account we store:

• your email address;
• your password, as a one-way hash that nobody, including us, can read back;
• whether your email address has been verified;
• the date you signed up and the date you last signed in;
• a count of your runs for each day, which is deleted after 30 days.

We use your email address only to run your account, for example to send verification and password-reset codes. We do not sell or share it.

Verification and password-reset codes

When you sign up, or ask to reset your password, we email you a short code. Codes expire after 30 minutes, and we store them only as a hash. These emails are sent through our own mail server (SMTP) at our host, Hostinger.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account at any time on the account page. This removes your account and its run counters straight away. Hosting logs and contact form messages are kept only for the periods described elsewhere in this policy.

Storage in your browser

The site saves a few things in your own browser to make it work better. This data stays on your device and is not sent to us:

• localStorage entries starting with "ez:", which hold your theme choice (dark or light), tool settings and a local list of recent tool runs. That list records the tool name, file sizes and time. It never contains file contents.
• IndexedDB database "ez-handoff", which briefly holds a file when you pass it from one tool to another. It is cleared after use.
• A service worker that caches site assets so pages load faster and work offline.

Visitors who are not signed in receive no cookies. If you sign in to a free account, we set one strictly necessary first-party cookie, "ezc_u", that keeps you signed in for 30 days. It is HttpOnly and signed, and it contains only your user id and its expiry time. You can read the full details, and how to clear this storage, in our Cookie Policy.

Payments, analytics and advertising

Accounts are free and optional, and the site takes no payments: there is no paid plan. We set no analytics or advertising cookies, we do not run analytics or advertising, and we do not track you across pages or other websites. If we ever add analytics or advertising, we will update this policy and our cookie notice before doing so.

Children

The site is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child under 13 has sent us personal information through the contact form, please let us know and we will delete it.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA give you rights over your personal information. These include the right to:

• ask what personal information we hold about you and get a copy of it;
• ask us to correct or delete it;
• object to or ask us to restrict how we use it;
• complain to your local data protection authority.

In practice, the personal information we may hold about you is your account details (if you created a free account), the hashed run counters described above, anything you sent through the contact form and the hosting logs. You can delete your account yourself on the account page. To exercise any of the other rights, use the contact form. We will respond within the time limits that apply to us. We do not sell or share your personal information for advertising.

Data held only in your browser (settings, the recent runs list and cached files) is under your control. You can delete it at any time through your browser's site data settings.

Data security

The whole site is served over HTTPS, so data travelling between your browser and our server is encrypted. Because file processing happens on your device, your files are not exposed to risks on our side. Account passwords and email codes are stored only as one-way hashes, and the sign-in cookie is signed so it cannot be altered. We limit access to account records and contact form messages to the people who need them to run the site and reply to you.

No system is perfectly secure, but we keep the amount of data we hold small, which reduces what could ever be exposed.

International transfers

Hostinger and the CDN providers listed above operate servers in several countries. When your browser connects to them, your IP address and request details may be processed in a country other than your own, which may have different data protection laws. These providers handle that data under their own policies and safeguards.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the site changes, for example if we add a tool that uses an outside service. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page shows when it last changed. For significant changes, we will make the update clear on this page.

Contact

For any question about privacy or this policy, please reach us through the contact page. You can also read our Terms of Service, Cookie Policy and Disclaimer.