PC Parts Hounder Privacy Policy

This policy explains what information PC Parts Hounder collects, why, and the choices you have. PC Parts Hounder is made by EazyVerse Studio. If you have any questions, email us at hello@eazyverse.com.

The short version

There is no account and no sign-up. We never ask for your name, your email address or your phone number. What you save and what you search stays on your phone. The app does sign in anonymously so it can share price results with other users, it caches the searches themselves so nobody has to wake twelve shops for the same part twice, and it sends crash reports and basic usage counts so a shop that quietly stops working can be found and fixed. We show no ads and we never sell your data.

Signing in anonymously

The app signs in to Firebase Authentication anonymously. That gives your device an anonymous id, which is used for one thing: to stamp the price results your device contributes to the shared cache, so a bad write can be traced. The id is not linked to you, carries no personal details, and is not used to build a profile.

What the app stores on your phone

• The parts you save, with the price they cost when you saved them
• Your recent searches, with the price each one found
• Your settings: theme, language and whether price alerts are on

All of it lives on the device and is removed when you uninstall the app.

The shared price cache

Search results are cached in Google Cloud Firestore under the search text itself, so another user looking for the same part does not have to wake every shop again. A cached search holds the product names, prices and links the shops published, which shops were asked, when it was read, and the anonymous id of the device that wrote it. It holds nothing about you.

That does mean the words you search are stored, in a record other users of the app read. Treat search terms the way you would a public search box, and do not type anything personal into one.

Reaching the shops

Hounder is client-only: your phone asks each retailer's own public website directly, and there is no server of ours in between. Those retailers therefore see an ordinary web request from your device, including your IP address, in the same way they would if you opened their site in a browser. One shop puts a Cloudflare check in front of its pages, which the app passes in the system WebView; the cookie that check hands back is stored by Android's WebView on your device and reused so you are not challenged on every search.

Diagnostics

The app uses Firebase Crashlytics for crash reports, and Firebase Analytics for basic usage counts: how long a search took, how many shops answered, how many results came back, which shops were reached and how, and which shops answered but returned nothing. Reporting a wrong price sends the shop, the product title and the price that was shown, so the fault can be traced and fixed. None of it carries browsing history or personal data.

Configuration

How each shop's pages are read ships through Firebase Remote Config, so a retailer's redesign can be repaired without an app update. Firebase App Check is used to keep writes to the shared cache coming from genuine builds of the app.

Permissions the app may ask for

• Internet - required, because every search fetches from the retailers' sites.
• Notifications - asked for only if you turn on price alerts, and used only to tell you a part you saved got cheaper. Decline it and you are never asked again.

What we do not do

• No account, no sign-in, and no user profiles
• No advertising and no ad networks
• No location, no contacts, no camera, no files
• No selling or renting of your personal information

Service providers

Google acts as our service provider for the anonymous sign-in (Firebase Authentication), the shared cache (Cloud Firestore), diagnostics (Crashlytics and Analytics), configuration (Remote Config) and App Check. Google's handling of that data is described in the Firebase privacy documentation. Data held by these services may be processed on servers located outside your country.

Your choices

• Turn price alerts off in Settings, or decline the notification permission
• Clear your saved parts and recent searches in the app
• Uninstall the app, or clear its storage in Android's App info screen, to remove everything held on that device
• Ask us to remove what we hold: Delete your PC Parts Hounder data

Children

PC Parts Hounder is intended for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13.

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes, we will update the date above and, where appropriate, let you know in the app.

Contact

Questions about your privacy or this policy? Email hello@eazyverse.com.

Need to remove your data? See Delete your PC Parts Hounder account & data.