Privacy Policy for Fireside

Last updated: 28 August 2026

The short version

Fireside collects nothing, sends nothing to us, and contains no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind. There is no account, and no server of ours anywhere. Your books and your reading never leave your device.

Fireside goes online in exactly one place, and you open it by hand: the Discover tab. Everything else — the reader, your library, the pacer, paper mode, your highlights, your notes and your place in every book — works with the phone in a drawer.

What Fireside stores, and where

Everything the app keeps is stored on your device, inside the app’s own storage area:

• Your books. When you import a book, Fireside copies the file into its own Books folder so that moving or deleting the original elsewhere does not break your library. Books downloaded from Discover are saved the same way. These copies stay on your device.
• Your reading positions, highlights and notes. Recorded per book, on the device.
• Your preferences. Typeface, size, spacing, theme, paper settings, pacing and library layout settings.
• Your reading record. Days read, time read and books finished, kept on the device so the app can show your streak and statistics.
• A layout cache, and covers from Discover. Temporary files that make reopening a book, and reopening the catalogue, fast. You can clear these at any time from Settings.
• A Standard Ebooks membership email, only if you add one. If you enter a Patrons Circle address to unlock their full catalogue, it is stored on the device and sent only to standardebooks.org. No password is stored, because none is used.

None of this is transmitted to us. We run no server, and there is no account for any of it to be attached to.

The Discover tab

Discover is a catalogue you open, not a feed that arrives. It ships with one catalogue — Standard Ebooks, whose books are in the public domain. When you open it, your phone requests:

• the catalogue feed, from standardebooks.org;
• cover images, as rows come into view;
• a book file, when you tap Download.

You can also add any other OPDS catalogue by address. If you do, your phone talks to that address directly.

These requests go from your phone to the catalogue. They do not pass through us, and nothing about you, your library or your reading is included in them. Discover knows nothing about you, and there is nothing behind it that could — there are no recommendations and no personalisation.

If you never open Discover, Fireside makes no network requests at all.

What Fireside does not do

• It does not collect personal information.
• It does not require an account, and there is nothing to sign in to.
• It does not use analytics, telemetry, crash reporting, or advertising.
• It does not track you across other apps or websites, and shows no App Tracking Transparency prompt, because it has nothing to ask for.
• It does not share data with third parties. Nothing about you is sent anywhere, including to the catalogues Discover reads from.

Your books are visible to you

Fireside’s Books folder is deliberately visible in the iOS Files app, under On My iPhone → Fireside. You can add books to it, copy books out of it, and inspect exactly what the app holds. Nothing is hidden from you. Highlights and notes can be exported as Markdown, CSV or JSON.

Deleting your data

Deleting the Fireside app removes everything it stored, including your books, positions, highlights, notes and preferences. Settings also offers a way to delete all books and covers, or to reset reading positions, without deleting the app.

There is no server-side copy to request, correct, or erase, because none is ever made.

Children

Fireside is safe for all ages with respect to data: it collects no information from anyone, including children under 13. The books the app can reach through Discover are public-domain works of literature; anything else in your library is a file you added yourself.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted on this page with a new date above. Because the app collects nothing, any change is likely to be a clarification rather than a change in practice.

Contact

Questions about privacy in Fireside: aharonahdoot@gmail.com