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Not ABrowser

Privacy policy

Last updated: 1 September 2026

This policy covers the Not A Browser app for Android and the notabrowser.app website. It is written to be read rather than to be survived, so the short version comes first.

The short version. Not A Browser has no accounts, no analytics, no advertising and no servers of its own. It does not collect, store or transmit personal data. Pages you open and QR codes you scan stay on your phone. There is nothing for us to look at, sell, lose or hand over.

Everything below is the detail behind that paragraph.

Who is responsible for this policy

Not A Browser is operated by Charlvdh Apps of 76 Marlborough Avenue, Craighall Park, Johannesburg, 2196, South Africa.

Contact for anything in this policy: hello@notabrowser.app.

What the app collects

Nothing.

More precisely, Not A Browser does not collect, and has no mechanism to collect:

Not A Browser does not operate servers that receive data from the app. There is no backend because there is nothing to send to one.

What stays on your device

Some data necessarily exists on your phone for a browser to work at all. None of it reaches us.

Website data. When you open a page, the system browser engine may store cookies, cache and local storage for that site, exactly as any browser does. This is what keeps you signed in to a site between visits. It lives in Not A Browser's own private app storage, separate from Chrome or any other browser, and no other app can read it. You can erase all of it at any time: Settings → Apps → Not A Browser → Storage → Clear storage. Uninstalling Not A Browser deletes it too.

Camera and QR codes. Not A Browser requests camera permission for one purpose: reading QR codes. The camera image is analysed on your device, in memory, to find a web address. Images are not saved, not uploaded, and not retained after the frame is analysed. The decoded address is used to open a page and is not stored. Not A Browser has no photo library access, and the camera is active only while the scanner screen is open. You can refuse or revoke the permission at any time in Android's settings; the rest of the app works normally without it.

Preferences. A small amount of local app state, on your device only.

Third parties

We use as few as possible, and here is the complete list.

Websites you visit. Not A Browser renders pages from other people's servers. Those sites receive your IP address and whatever else your requests contain, and they run under their own privacy policies, which we neither control nor can see into. Opening a page in Not A Browser is, from that site's point of view, an ordinary visit from a browser. A browser with no address bar does not make a website any more private.

Android System WebView. Page rendering uses the browser engine that is part of Android itself, supplied and updated by Google. Its behaviour is governed by Google's terms and by your device settings.

Google ML Kit (barcode scanning). QR decoding uses Google's ML Kit barcode library, which is bundled inside the app and runs entirely on your device. No image or scan result is sent anywhere. In the interest of being accurate rather than flattering: this library links parts of Google Play Services into the app, so it would be wrong for us to claim Not A Browser contains no Google code. What is true, and verifiable, is that scanning happens on your device and nothing about it is uploaded.

Google Play. Distribution, updates and any future purchases are handled by Google Play under Google's own terms. If paid features are added, Google processes the payment and we receive purchase status only, never your card details.

We do not use analytics, attribution, crash-reporting or advertising SDKs of any kind.

The website

notabrowser.app sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and embeds no third-party trackers, fonts-with-tracking, social widgets or advertising pixels.

The site is hosted by Vercel Inc., which processes ordinary technical request information (IP address, user agent, requested page, timestamp) for security and to deliver the pages, as any web host does. That processing is covered by Vercel's privacy policy.

Legal basis and your rights

Not A Browser is operated from South Africa, so the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) is the law that governs how it handles personal information, and the Information Regulator (South Africa) is the authority you can complain to.

If you are in the UK, the EU, California, or anywhere with comparable law, you have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict and port your personal data, and to complain to your own regulator as well.

In our case those rights have an unusual answer: we hold no personal data about you, so there is nothing to produce, correct, delete or export. Should you ask, that is the answer you will get, in writing, within one month.

The only personal data we ever process is the content of an email you choose to send us: your email address and whatever you write. We keep it while we deal with your message and for a reasonable period after, and use it for nothing else. Ask us to delete it and we will.

Children

Not A Browser is not directed at children under 13 and collects no data from anyone, including children. It renders whatever web page it is given, and it does not filter web content, so it is not a substitute for parental controls. Android's own Family Link and Digital Wellbeing settings are the right tools for that.

Data transfers, retention and security

We hold no personal data, so there is nothing to transfer internationally, nothing to retain, and no store of user data that could be breached. Data on your device is protected by Android's application sandbox and by your device's own encryption and lock screen.

Changes

If this policy changes we will update the date at the top and, for any change that materially affects you, note it in the app's release notes. Not A Browser has no way to contact you directly, which is itself a consequence of collecting nothing.

Contact

Charlvdh Apps hello@notabrowser.app