Privacy Notice
The short version: your browsing never leaves your computer, and there is no telemetry to switch off because there is none to switch off.
Last updated 4 September 2026
Ham Browser is published by Andrei Ivanoff (KO4ZHL), an individual, in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. This notice describes the desktop application and this website. It is written to be checked against the program rather than to sound reassuring, so it names every service the app contacts.
What is never collected
- The pages you visit. The application contains no analytics, no telemetry, no usage reporting, and no crash reporting that carries your browsing. This is true of the program itself; see This website below for hambrowser.com.
- Your history, your open tabs, your bookmarks, your downloads and your search terms.
- Anything at all when you have not signed in, beyond the automatic requests listed below.
There is no setting to turn this off in the application because there is nothing to turn off.
This website
hambrowser.com uses Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages people read, so we know which parts of the browser are worth explaining better. It records the usual things a web analytics tool records: the pages you open on this site, roughly where in the world you are, and what kind of device and browser you used. It is limited to this website and cannot see anything you do inside Ham Browser.
If you would rather not be counted, any content blocker or the browser’s own tracking protection will stop it, and nothing on this site depends on it working. Google’s handling of that data is covered by Google’s privacy policy.
What stays on your computer
- Browsing history, bookmarks, open tabs, downloads and preferences.
- Saved website passwords, encrypted on disk with a key held on the same computer. Filling one in asks for Touch ID, Windows Hello or your confirmation first.
- Mail account credentials, encrypted the same way. Mail connects directly from your computer to your provider over TLS; it does not pass through us.
- Your AI provider key, if you add one.
- A copy of your logbook, as a database file, so the log works when the network does not.
A private window keeps none of this: its cookies, cache and sign-ins are discarded when you close it, and nothing is written to history.
What the app fetches by itself
Automatically, without you asking, and without an account:
- An update check against hambrowser.com shortly after launch, and periodically after that. It sends nothing but the request.
- The new tab page: amateur radio headlines from the publishers’ own feeds, the current weather, and space weather from NOAA. The local news and weather requests carry the town you are in, or the one you set in Settings.
- An approximate location, resolved from your IP address by a geolocation service. It is used to fill in your grid square, to show local propagation and weather, and to answer location requests from ham radio sites you visit. You can set your location by hand in Settings instead. Ham Browser never receives it — the answer comes back to your computer.
If you sign in
The free account is a QSL World account, and it is what the logbook, Grid Rush, the QSL cards and the CW Room use to know who you are. It stores your email address, your name, your callsign, your station details and a hashed password, together with the contacts you log. Your log is yours: you can export it as ADIF at any time, and delete your account by writing to us.
Services the app talks to, and when
- qslworld.com — your logbook, QSL cards, the CW room and the DX spot feed, whenever those are open and you are signed in.
- Map tiles (Mapbox, OpenStreetMap and Esri contributors) when a map is on screen.
- NOAA Space Weather, Open-Meteo, Celestrak and AMSAT for propagation, weather and satellite data.
- Parks on the Air and World Wide Flora & Fauna for their spot feeds.
- QRZ.com, Logbook of The World and eQSL only when you connect those accounts yourself, and only with the credentials you give them.
- Your own AI provider when you use the assistant with your own key. If you have not added a key, the request is relayed through qslworld.com to reach a provider; conversations are not kept for any other purpose. If you would rather nothing was relayed, add your own key.
- Your own mail provider, directly, for the mail client.
Websites you visit are, of course, contacted by you visiting them. Ham Browser does not add anything to those requests.
Logbook of The World
Uploading to LoTW runs through the TrustedQSL program installed on your own computer. Your certificate and its private key never leave that computer, and never reach Ham Browser or QSL World.
This website
hambrowser.com serves pages and files. It sets no advertising or tracking cookies. Standard web server logs (IP address, page, time) are kept by the host for operational purposes.
Children
Ham Browser is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information.
Changes, and how to reach us
If this notice changes, the date at the top changes with it. Questions, or a request to see or delete what is held for your account: privacy@hambrowser.com.
