Legal
Privacy Statement
Last updated: July 22, 2026
The short version: Chip Hippo has no accounts, no telemetry, and no third-party tracking. Everything you build — boards, chips, wires, and whole designs — stays on your own device as plain files. This website sets no cookies and runs no analytics.
This statement explains how the Chip Hippo desktop application and the chiphippo.com website handle your information. Both are built and maintained by Jason Figge. The principle behind both is the same: Chip Hippo is a local-first tool, so your work belongs to you and stays with you.
1. The Chip Hippo app
Your designs stay on your device
Your working desk, saved .chiphippo schematics, and settings are stored
in local files under your operating system's user-profile folder (and wherever you
choose to save documents). None of it is uploaded to us or to any cloud service —
there is no Chip Hippo account and no server that holds your work. You can back it up,
move it, or delete it yourself at any time.
Fully offline simulation
Chip Hippo designs and simulates circuits entirely on your machine. The app makes no network requests to run — placing parts, wiring, and the whole simulation engine are local computation. It does not send your designs anywhere.
Software updates (optional)
If update checks are offered and you use them — or download a new version manually — the app or your browser contacts GitHub to look for and fetch new releases. That connection reaches GitHub's servers and is subject to GitHub's privacy statement. You can always download new versions yourself instead.
No telemetry
Chip Hippo contains no analytics SDKs, usage tracking, crash-reporting services, advertising, or “phone-home” beacons. The optional donation link simply opens a page in your browser; the app does not track whether you visit it or give.
2. This website
Static, cookie-free, no analytics
chiphippo.com is a static website. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics or advertising scripts, and includes no third-party tracking. Fonts are loaded from your own system, so there are no web-font CDN requests either.
Hosting
The site is hosted on GitHub Pages. As with any web host, GitHub may process standard technical information — such as your IP address and browser user-agent — in server logs in order to deliver and protect the site. We do not receive or store those logs; that processing is governed by GitHub's privacy practices, not ours.
Content loaded from GitHub
The download buttons point to GitHub Releases, and the downloads section reads the list of releases from a small static file generated at build time. When you follow a download link, your browser connects to GitHub, subject to GitHub's privacy statement.
Outbound links
Links to GitHub and other external sites take you to third parties that have their own privacy policies, which we don't control.
3. What we never do
- We don't sell, rent, or share your personal data — we don't collect it to begin with.
- We don't run ads or embed third-party trackers, in the app or on this site.
- We don't require or create user accounts.
- We don't collect, transmit, or store your circuit designs.
4. Your data and your rights
Because we don't collect or hold personal data about you, there is nothing on our side to access, correct, export, or delete. The information the app stores lives on your own device and is fully under your control — you can view, edit, back up, or erase it at any time. If you are in a region with data-protection laws such as the GDPR or CCPA, those rights are effectively satisfied because no personal data about you ever leaves your machine for us.
5. Changes to this statement
If this statement changes, we'll update the “Last updated” date above and post the revised version here. Because the site is open source, its full history is also visible in the project's GitHub repository.
6. Contact
Questions about privacy? Open an issue on GitHub.