Privacy policy

The short version: Buzzle keeps your progress on your device. When you finish a round, it sends us a small anonymous summary so we can tell which puzzles work. There is no name, email or IP address in it, and we use no cookies. You can say yes to a random device ID, so we can count returning players, or you can switch stats off in Settings at any time. Nothing is sold, shared or used for ads.

What stays on your device

When you play, Buzzle saves a few things in your browser so the game can remember you:

• Your results, streaks and in-progress puzzles, in your browser’s IndexedDB.
• Your settings (theme, reduced motion, sound, vibration) and your stats choice, in your browser’s localStorage.
• A queue of round summaries and game-open counts waiting to be sent.
• If you say “Yes, count me”, a random device ID.

Your progress stays on your device until you delete it, clear your browser data, or use a different browser or device. Because it lives in one browser, it does not follow you to another one unless you move it yourself. The Cookies and storage page lists every key.

Round stats

A round is one finished puzzle: a daily, an archive puzzle or an endless run. When you finish one, your device queues a summary and sends it to our server once you have answered the notice that appears on your first visit. Here is exactly what the summary holds:

• Which game and which version of it, and the mode (daily, archive or endless).
• For a daily or archive puzzle, the puzzle’s date and number. For an endless run, its replay code and whether the game rolled it or you typed it in.
• The difficulty, if the game has levels.
• Whether you solved it, your score and how long it took.
• A few extra numbers the game itself reports about the round, such as a par or a grade. These are small and flat, and they never include moves, recordings or anything you typed.
• The date it was played on your clock, and the date and hour (UTC) we received it.
• A kind of device: desktop, mobile, tablet or other. Your browser works this out on your device, so we never receive your user agent.
• Whether you played in the installed app.
• Your country, only when our CDN adds it to the request (see below).
• A random ID for the round itself, so a summary that is sent twice is counted once.
• Your device ID, only if you chose “Yes, count me”.

Game opens. Each time you open a game, your device adds one to a counter. We receive only totals per game, mode and day (for example, “Replace All, daily, 3 November: 41 opens”). It is never a record of a person or a visit, and it carries no ID. Next to finished rounds it tells us how many people who start a puzzle finish it.

Your answer to the notice. We add one to a daily count for the answer you gave (Count me, Anonymous or Off). That count carries no ID, no device and no country.

The optional device ID. If you say “Yes, count me”, your device makes a random ID, a UUID, and sends it with your rounds. We use it to count returning players, which means devices, not people. It is never shown to you or put in a URL. It is left out of backups, so two devices never share one. Your device replaces it with a new one after about 13 months. If you say “Keep me anonymous”, no ID is ever made.

What we never collect. Your name, your email, your IP address, your user agent, your screen size, or any page you visit. Only finished rounds and game opens are sent, and nothing else about your browsing. To limit abuse, the server keeps a scrambled count per connection in memory only. It is never written to disk and it disappears when the server restarts.

Country. Our CDN knows which country a request comes from and can pass that to our server as a header. When it does, we store the two-letter country code on the round. We have no location database of our own and we never see or store the IP address behind it. Without the header, the country is empty.

Why we collect it

To see which games people finish, which puzzles are too hard or too easy, and whether anyone comes back, so we can make better puzzles. That is the only purpose. The numbers are used as totals. They are never sold, never shared with anyone else, never combined with other data or followed across other sites, and never used for ads.

How long we keep it

• Round summaries are kept for 180 days, then deleted. Daily totals worked out from them (rounds, solves, scores, player counts, split by game, mode, country and device kind) carry no device ID and are kept.
• Device IDs that we have not seen for 400 days are deleted, and their rounds are unlinked from them.
• Analytics copies. We may export the data to analyze it elsewhere before it is deleted. Those exports leave out the device ID.
• On your device, the queue of unsent rounds waits as long as it needs to. A round leaves it only when our server has answered for it, or when you erase your data.

Your choices

Open Settings, then “Your data”, at any time. The first-visit notice points there too.

• Count me: an anonymous summary of each round, plus a random device ID.
• Anonymous: the same summaries, with no ID. Moving here from Count me unlinks your device (see below).
• Off: nothing is queued, counted or sent. Switching off unlinks your device ID, empties the queue and stops counting game opens. It sends one last anonymous tick, so we can see how many people switch off. Your own progress stays on your device.

Delete my data on the server (in Settings) unlinks your device. We delete your device ID and detach it from every round it sent. Rounds already sent stay in our totals, with nothing linking them to you, because they no longer belong to anyone. Your stats choice stays, except that Count me becomes Anonymous. Your progress on your device is untouched.

Delete everything (on the Stats page) does that, and also erases all your results, streaks, settings and queued rounds from your device. Rounds already sent stay in our totals, with nothing linking them to you. The first-visit notice then comes back.

The Stats page can also export everything Buzzle has saved as a file and import it on another device. Clearing your browser’s site data erases the same things.

Our legal basis

• Anonymous round stats rely on the audience-measurement exemption, as read by the French regulator CNIL and the UK’s Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. It applies because we only measure our own audience, only keep totals, share nothing, sell nothing and combine nothing with other data, store no IP address, keep raw data for 180 days and give you a simple, free way to object: Settings, Round stats, Off. You are told on the notice and on this page.
• The device ID is used only with your consent, which is the “Yes, count me” button. It lasts about 13 months, and you can withdraw consent in Settings at any time.

Who handles the data

Our database is hosted by Supabase, which acts as our processor. It stores the data on our behalf and does nothing else with it.

No cookies, no ads

• Buzzle sets no cookies.
• There is no advertising and no tracking pixels.
• Buzzle loads no third-party scripts, fonts or embeds. Everything comes from buzzle.space itself.

What our server logs

Like any web server, ours keeps a short log of requests so we can keep the site running. Each entry holds only the time, the request method, the path, the response status and how long it took. It does not hold your IP address, your user agent or the query string.

Links to other sites

The footer links to another site we like, thepsychopathic.me. It has its own policies, and we do not share anything with it by linking.

Changes

If this policy changes, we will update this page and say what changed here. If what we store changes in a way that matters, the first-visit notice asks you again.