MathPad

Privacy

MathPad looks for a newer version of itself, and that is all it does on the network. Your notebooks and their results stay on your computer.

Looking for updates

When MathPad starts, and at most once a day, it fetches one small file from storage.googleapis.com/mathpad-releases, the place its releases are kept: the list that says which version is the newest. When that version is newer than yours, MathPad downloads it from the same place, checks that the file is the one the list describes, and puts it in when you quit. Choosing Help > Check for Updates fetches the same file when you ask.

These are ordinary web requests for files that are the same for everybody. MathPad puts nothing of its own into them: no installation id, no version number, nothing about you, your computer or your notebooks, and no cookies. What they do reveal is what any web request reveals to the server it goes to: Google's storage service, which holds the files, sees the network address the request came from, the time, and which file was asked for. We don't run that service and don't use its records to count or follow anybody.

Switching it off

  • Help > Check Automatically, unchecked: MathPad never connects by itself. It looks for a newer version only when you choose Help > Check for Updates.
  • Help > Install Updates Automatically, unchecked: MathPad still looks, but downloads nothing until you say so in the bar that tells you about the new version.

Both choices, the time MathPad last looked and a version you chose to skip are kept in the file updates.json in MathPad's data folder (~/Library/Application Support/MathPad) on your computer.

What is never sent

  • Your notebooks, their math, results and plots, or what you export
  • File names, folder names or paths
  • Your name, email address, user name or computer name
  • What you do in MathPad: no usage tracking, no crash reports, no install count

MathPad has no accounts and no advertising, and nothing is sold or shared. Every answer is worked out on your computer by the app's own algebra, with no AI service behind it. Apart from looking for updates and downloading one, the app makes no connections; a link you click in it (to this website, say) opens in your browser.

Where your work is kept

  • Notebooks are .mathpad files, saved where you choose.
  • Your settings, the list of recent files and copies of unsaved changes (kept against a crash) are in MathPad's data folder on your computer.

The download count

Pressing a download button on this website tells a service we run, stats.syncster.dev, that MathPad was downloaded: the product, the version and the system it is for (macOS or Windows). Nothing about you is in it, and there are no cookies.

Questions

Write to us through syncster.dev.