Cookies & local storage

Cookies, in plain words

A "cookie" is a small piece of data a website asks your browser to remember between visits. Most websites use cookies for advertising, retargeting, and cross-site tracking through third-party scripts.

Fathom does none of the above. There are no advertising cookies, no retargeting pixels, no Google Tag Manager, no Meta pixel, no third-party tracking of any kind.

The one analytics tool we do use

Plausible Analytics - we load a small script from plausible.io that records aggregate page views and outbound-link clicks. Plausible is built specifically to be GDPR/CCPA/PECR-compliant by design: no cookies are set, no persistent identifiers are stored on your device, no fingerprint is computed, and no data is sold or shared. The script counts visits using a daily-rotating hash of (IP + user-agent + site domain) that cannot be reversed to identify you. We see country, referrer, browser, and which pages are popular - nothing more.

If you still want to opt out, any tracker-blocker (uBlock Origin, Brave's shields, Firefox strict mode) blocks Plausible automatically.

What else Fathom stores - on your device only

localStorage - equivalent to a cookie under most data-protection regulations. We use it for: your account record, active session, subscription state, language preference, default lesson view, accepted-cookies flag, and (when you create or redeem one) coupon records. All of this stays on your device.

IndexedDB - a browser-native database. We use it for voice notes you record (stored as base64 audio blobs).

Service-worker cache - a browser-native cache that stores the static files needed to run the app offline. No personal content.

Why we still show a banner

Some jurisdictions (notably the EU) treat localStorage usage like cookie usage and require disclosure or consent. Even though Fathom does not place anything that tracks you across sites, we surface this notice so you know exactly what is being stored and where.

Dismissing the banner sets a single key (fathom.cookies.ack.v1) in localStorage so we don't keep showing it. That is the only effect of clicking "Got it".

Removing what's stored

You can clear everything Fathom has stored on your device at any time, from inside the app: Me → Your data → Delete everything. You can also clear it from your browser's site-data settings - Chrome, Firefox, and Safari all expose a per-site "clear storage" control.

Clearing storage logs you out, removes your subscriptions and progress on this device, and resets all preferences. There is no cloud copy to fall back on.

Third-party assets

Images and fonts are served directly from fathom.courses - no external CDN, no third-party font services, no embedded media. The app uses one font file (Noto Nastaliq Urdu) served from the same domain. The only external script we load is Plausible (described above); it sets no cookies.