What w0a collects about you

w0a sends no usage statistics and no analytics: which pages you open and which tweaks you apply are not sent. On its own it sends the licence check, its live connection and sign-off, the update check and error diagnostics (on by default, with a switch in Settings); everything else leaves only when you ask for something.

What leaves your computer

Some of it goes on its own while w0a runs, and the rest only when you ask for something.

On its own

1. The licence check, at start-up — only once a key is entered: the key, a hash of your machine fingerprint, and which version of the agreement you accepted and when, with a digest of its text. Not your serial numbers: a one-way hash that cannot be turned back into them. While the live connection below is not up, the check repeats every five minutes.
2. The live connection, while w0a is open — with a key entered, w0a keeps a connection to our server open so that a cancelled or banned licence stops working within seconds. It carries the same key and fingerprint hash and nothing else, and w0a re-opens it whenever it drops.
3. The sign-off, when you close w0a — the key and the fingerprint hash once more, so the admin view stops showing the device as online.
4. The update check, at start-up — a request for the version file, with nothing about you in it. Like any download, the server that answers sees the request and your address; the same goes for the setup file when you install an update.
5. Error diagnostics, two minutes after start-up and then every six hours — or every six minutes for up to about an hour while a long backlog goes out. The app's own error lines from errors.log, with your licence key and machine-fingerprint hash, so we can see how many separate machines hit the same fault. Windows user-folder paths, your Windows username and anything shaped like a licence key are stripped out first, and nothing you have typed is included. This one is on by default and needs a licence key; the switch is Settings > Privacy > Send error diagnostics, and turning it off stops it for good. Kept 90 days.

Only when you ask

1. When you activate a key — the key and the fingerprint hash, which is what stops one key running on a hundred machines, and the hardware summary listed in our Privacy Policy §3.3, including the computer name, local IP address and uptime. Our server records that summary only at the key's first activation.
2. When you release its device binding — the key and the fingerprint hash: the same request in reverse.
3. When you send a problem report — what you typed into the box, any contact address you added, your app version, Windows build, CPU and graphics card model, and your licence key and machine-fingerprint hash, which is what the one-report-per-hour limit is counted against. Where the error log is attached, its last lines go with it. Windows user-folder paths, your Windows username and anything shaped like a licence key are stripped out before it leaves. The Privacy Policy lists every field.
4. When you claim the Discord trial — the one-time claim code the bot gave you, and the same machine-fingerprint hash. The code is what proves the claim is yours: our server looks up which Discord account it was issued to, asks Discord whether that account is still a member of our server, and records a keyed one-way digest of that account's ID next to the fingerprint hash, never the ID itself. That record is the whole enforcement of "once per Discord account, once per device", so it is kept for as long as the trial offer exists. The code itself is held only as a digest, next to the ID of the Discord account it was issued to, and a sweep deletes that record within seven hours of the code being used or expiring. No Discord name is sent or stored at any point.
5. When you link a lifetime licence to private support on Discord — the key, the fingerprint hash and the one-time code the bot gave you, so our server can give that Discord account the support role. While the link stands, our server keeps that account's ID next to your key, because Discord removes a role only by its ID.
6. When you open some pages or press their button — requests to other services, with no key and no fingerprint hash in them: the Drivers page asks NVIDIA for the latest driver and, when you scan for app updates, lets winget query Microsoft's package sources; the Ping page fetches Valve's relay list from Steam, and its game-server test pings reference hosts in each region; the DNS page tests public resolvers such as Cloudflare, Google and Quad9; the Internet page, a Benchmark capture and the IPv6 repair card on the Fix page send small probes to Cloudflare's public resolver; installing the optional sensor driver downloads its setup file from GitHub; and the Updates page reads the release notes from w0a.app and runs the update check again. Each of these services sees your address, as with any connection.

Our server also keeps, on your licence record, the IP address your app last connected from, and the country it looked up from your address at activation (or at a later check, if that lookup found nothing).

What never leaves

• No usage statistics. Which pages you open and which tweaks you apply are not sent, and neither is counted. How long the app is open is not sent either, though our server does see when w0a connects and signs off, and it keeps the time it last saw it.
• No file names, no folder contents, no game list, no browsing.
• No error log contents beyond its own error lines. The file is written to %LocalAppData%\w0a\errors.log on your disk for you, and it holds only what w0a itself logged — no file names you opened, no game list, no browsing. Its lines leave in three ways and all three are listed above: the error diagnostics upload (on by default, switch in Settings), a problem report you chose to send (attaching it is a tick box you can clear), and a crash the app asks you about first.
• No advertising identifier, no third-party analytics, no crash reporting service.

Why there is no analytics

Not because we do not want the numbers — because a tool that changes machine-wide settings while phoning home about what it sees is asking for exactly the trust it does not deserve. If we ever add measurement, it will be opt-in, it will be named on this site, and the cookie page will describe it before it runs.

How can you verify this yourself?

You do not have to take the above on faith:

• The download's SHA-256 is published before you download it. Checking the download explains how.
• The website blocks itself from loading any script that is not ours — including the one our own hosting provider tries to insert.

Related

• Privacy Policy
• Why the key is tied to this PC