Privacy policy for hostserrer

What hostserrer collects about you

Nothing. There is no account, no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting and no identifier of any kind. The app has no server of its own to send anything to, and it does not phone home to check for updates — the app never checks for them — you download a new release, or pull the source and rebuild, when you decide to.

What it stores, and where

Record library and packages

Stored as library.json and packages.json in your local app data folder in human-readable JSON.

Settings and window preferences

Theme preferences, backup retention limits, and window coordinates stored in settings.json and state.json.

Hosts backups

Timestamped backups captured before each apply operation and whenever you back up manually, plus the untouched baseline hosts file from the first session. Kept in the app data folder unless you choose another folder on the Backups page.

Exported files

Plain-text hosts exports saved only to directories you manually select in file dialogs.

Everything it can connect to

Each of these is a connection you cause — by adding something, enabling something, or pressing a button — and none of them is made on a schedule you did not set.

Ping diagnostic

Invokes your operating system’s standard ping binary directly with the target host. No shell invocation; runs four packets on demand only.

Traceroute diagnostic

Invokes the system traceroute utility up to 20 hops directly against your selected target. Never invoked through a shell.

DNS propagation lookups

Launches your default web browser to Google, DNSChecker, or WhatsMyDNS with the target hostname in the query URL.

What never leaves your computer

• Your hosts file, record library, and package configurations never leave your machine.
• No background telemetry, usage tracking, automatic update checks, or crash telemetry.
• No modifications are ever made outside the designated managed block markers.
• Hosts file data is never passed via shell command strings where other local processes could inspect process arguments.

Safeguards

Diff preview required

The interactive preview dialog is the sole path to committing changes. Closing the preview aborts with zero modifications.

Automatic pre-write backups

Backups are generated prior to any write execution, preserving your baseline state.

Atomic writes and readback verification

Changes are written to a temporary staging file and moved atomically, then verified by reading back disk contents.

Native OS elevation

Privilege elevation relies exclusively on native system mechanisms (osascript, UAC, pkexec) and terminates immediately after write completion.

Sandboxed renderer architecture

The UI renderer runs strictly sandboxed without direct disk or shell access, communicating only across an explicit IPC bridge.

Command argument sanitization

Diagnostics validate host targets strictly, rejecting invalid characters and flags before executing system tools.

Your rights, and who to ask

Because the app holds nothing about you, there is nothing for the controller to access, correct or erase on your behalf: everything it knows is in files on your own computer, under your own control. Deleting the app’s user data directory (shown in About hostserrer) completely removes all records, packages, settings, and backups. Restore your hosts file before removing this directory if you wish to return to your original system baseline. For anything else, write to hello@flosforge.eu. The site-wide privacy policy covers this website, your rights under the GDPR, and the supervisory authority you can complain to.

Changes

This statement is checked against each release. If a version changes what the app stores or what it can connect to, the version and date at the top change with it.