Privacy Policy

Last updated: 15 October 2026. RemovePaywall is a free tool with no accounts, no logins, no ads, and no cross-site tracking. We collect the minimum needed to run and improve the service, and we don't sell your data.

What we collect

When you submit a link, our server records the article URL you paste (without click-tracking codes such as fbclid or utm_ tags), your IP address, your browser's User-Agent, the referring page, a short-lived session identifier, and a timestamp. This is standard web-server logging used to operate the service, prevent abuse, and understand usage.

We also log the outcome of each request at the domain level (e.g. "nytimes.com — reader view — success") along with how long it took, so we can measure and improve reliability. If you tap 👍/👎 on a result, we store that vote with the URL.

If the page hits a script error, we record the error message and where in our code it happened (file and line, and the page path such as /search) so we can fix it — cleaned of links, numbers and quoted text, and never including the article or its address.

We keep an aggregate, per-day count of page visits to gauge traffic. Once per visit we also record where you arrived from — the referring website, the entry page, any campaign tags in the link (UTM), your browser's language and User-Agent, and whether the page was actually displayed (a one-word signal from the page, so automated visits are not counted as people) — associated with the short-lived session identifier, not your identity. Search engines, AI assistants and link-preview fetchers are not counted as visits; we only keep a daily count of their fetches by name, with no IP address.

We also count taps on a few buttons and offers — for example sharing a link, a tip link, a suggested headline, or the add-on and home-screen offers — so we know which ones help. Each is stored as the button's name with the session identifier and a time, plus at most one short detail such as the article's domain for a share (e.g. nytimes.com) or the language pair for Translate — never the article's address. In the reader we also note, once per article, how far into it you got (in quarters) and roughly how long it was on screen (under 30 seconds, up to two minutes, or longer), with its domain; for 🔊 Listen, the article's language and whether it played to the end. Downloads of the Paywall Index data files are counted the same way, with the file and whether it was fetched by a person or a program. rmpwl.co and rmpwl.com are short names for this site: they send you on to removepaywall.co, and we count each use by day, short name and the article's domain only — no IP address, browser details or session.

Browser extension, Shortcut & share button

Our browser extension, iPhone Shortcut and Android share button are launchers: when you use one, it sends the address of the page you chose to our reader, exactly as if you had pasted it, and we note which launcher it came from. The extension makes no other requests and keeps no browsing history. When the extension is installed or removed it opens a page on this site, which we count (no identifier beyond the usual session cookie); the optional "why did you remove it" buttons record only the reason you tap. The separate "Open in Archive" extension sends the address of the page you choose to our /archive page, which only links to that page's copies on archive.today and the Wayback Machine (your browser opens them; we fetch nothing). We count each lookup with the site's domain only, not the full address.

Cookies & local storage

We set one functional cookie: a PHP session cookie used for security (CSRF protection) and rate-limiting. It is not used for advertising or cross-site tracking. We may also set a first-party cookie to keep you in a consistent version during an A/B test — no tracking, purely which layout you see.

Your reading preferences (text size, reading width) and your list of recent reads (the last few articles you opened here, so you can get back to them) are stored locally in your browser (localStorage) and never sent to us. "Clear" on the homepage empties the list.

A first-party cookie, rp_seen, holds only the date of your first visit — not an identifier — so we can count what share of visits are returning visitors, and roughly how long ago they first came. It is used for nothing else, never shared, and expires after 13 months.

Analytics

We use privacy-friendly, first-party analytics only: aggregate counts kept in our own database — page views, per-domain success outcomes, and a once-per-visit acquisition source. We do not use Google Analytics or any third-party analytics or advertising SDK, we set no cross-site tracking cookies, and we build no personal profiles.

Detailed usage logging (from 15 October 2026, reviewed after six weeks)

From 15 October 2026, for six weeks, after which we review it, we record in more detail how the site is used, to learn what helps people find and use it: which pages are opened and how visitors arrived; clicks on our own links and buttons (their label and where they lead — never the text of an article you are reading); how far a page was scrolled and how long it was read; how fast it loaded; script errors; and the names of forms that were started or sent, never anything typed into them. The site has no search box, so no searches are recorded.

This logging uses no cookie of its own beyond rp_seen (above), which holds only the date of your first visit. It loads nothing from other sites and sends nothing to anyone else, and does not store your IP address with these records. There is no code that follows you from day to day: the code that groups one day's pages changes daily, from a key we delete the next day, and the date of your first visit is recorded only as how long ago it was, in broad steps.

These records are kept 30 days on this site and 90 days in our private store, after which only daily totals remain.

Advertising

The site is not monetized with ads, and there is no ad tracking. If that ever changes, this policy will be updated first, and ads would never be shown to visitors in the EU/EEA, the UK or Switzerland.

Third-party pages and archives

To show an article, we fetch it server-side and, for the reader view, extract the text; for the full-page view we display a script-stripped copy in a sandboxed frame. We also query public archives (archive.today, the Internet Archive / Wayback Machine). Those third parties have their own privacy practices, which we don't control.

How we use and share data

We use the data above only to operate, secure, and improve RemovePaywall. We do not sell personal data. We may disclose information if required by law.

Data retention

To operate and protect the service we log requests, then prune them automatically: your IP address is anonymized after 90 days, the browser User-Agent stored with a visit is cleared after 90 days, and raw request logs, including the User-Agent recorded with each link you paste, are deleted after 12 months. To stop automated scraping, we also count reads per connection per hour, stored as a one-way code rather than your IP address, and delete those counts after 48 hours. Domain-level outcome statistics (which power our live per-site success rates) and aggregate daily visit counts contain no personal data and may be kept longer. Visit records (where you arrived from, the entry page, campaign tags and language), button-tap counts, 👍/👎 votes and script-error reports carry the short-lived session identifier but no IP address, and are not yet on an automatic deletion schedule.

Your choices

You can browse with an ad/tracker blocker, clear the session cookie by closing your browser, and reset reading preferences by clearing site data. You may contact us to ask what we hold about a given request.

Children

RemovePaywall is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes & contact

We may update this policy; material changes will be reflected here with a new date. Questions or requests: hello@removepaywall.co.