Privacy

Your files stay on your device. rom-weaver does the work in your browser instead of uploading anything to a server.

What happens to your files

When you pick a file in Apply, Create, Trim, or Tools, it is read by code running inside your own browser. The patching engine runs there too, as WebAssembly in background workers. Nothing about that requires a server.

There is no account to make, and your ROMs, disc images, patches, archives, and results are not sent to a rom-weaver server. The command-line tool is the same story: it reads and writes the paths you give it on your own computer.

Files stay in browser memory or browser storage while you work, and are gone once you download the result and the workflow releases them, or your browser clears its own storage, or you clear it yourself.

What your browser stores

The app keeps a few things locally so it works across reloads and can handle files too big to hold in memory:

• Local storage: your preferences, such as theme and settings, plus update state and a short recent log.
• Session storage: coordinates service-worker and security-mode reloads, update prompts, and the docs shelf state for the current tab.
• Cache storage: the app's own files, so it loads fast and works offline.
• IndexedDB: emulator save states, SRAM, and the kept-ROM index. Saves and kept ROMs share the ROM's SHA-1 key. File names are display labels. The app does not store a play history.
• Origin Private File System: temporary working files and outputs, plus ROMs explicitly kept from Test.

Keep tested ROMs on this device is off by default. When enabled, it keeps original files played on Test, including compressed archives. Apply outputs and created patches are excluded. Turning it off stops new copies; existing copies remain until you delete them. Failed copies do not stop the game.

Enabling ROM keeping requests persistent browser storage for saves and ROMs. The protection control in Saves & storage makes the same request. A browser can decline it. Clearing site data still removes everything.

Saves can be backed up individually or together using Export all saves. Browser storage is not a backup. Safari may remove script-writable data after seven days of Safari use without interaction with this site. Home-screen web apps are exempt from that inactivity limit; see WebKit's storage policy.

All of it belongs to the rom-weaver site in your browser and is under your browser's control. The app sets no advertising or tracking cookies.

What the app downloads

Opening the site downloads what any site downloads: HTML, styles, scripts, the WebAssembly module, fonts, and these pages. Opening Test also downloads the selected, self-hosted EmulatorJS core; with Keep an offline copy on, every core downloads in the background. ROM identification downloads self-hosted database packs during background preparation or when a lookup needs an uncached pack. Pack requests identify the database asset; the ROM checksum and filename are not sent. As with any website, whoever hosts and routes that traffic can see ordinary request information: an IP address, a browser user agent, the path requested, and a timestamp.

There are no analytics, advertising, or tracking scripts in the deployed app.

If you open a sample workflow, a weave from a URL, or any other remote file, your browser fetches that one thing from wherever it lives, and that server sees the same ordinary request information.

Links to other sites

Links to GitHub, Ko-fi, package registries, and anywhere else are just links. Nothing from those sites is loaded into the app page. They are contacted only when you click, and from then on their own privacy terms apply.

How to clear everything

Use your browser's site-data controls to look at or delete rom-weaver's local storage, cache, service worker, and private file storage. Clearing site data is the thorough option and removes everything listed above.

The app's own Reset button is not that. It reloads the workflow you are in and leaves stored data alone.

If you would rather not have a site origin or a service worker involved at all, use the command-line tool. Installing it and checking for updates still follows the normal behavior of whichever installer or registry you use.

Questions and changes

This page describes the rom-weaver webapp as it is now. If how files are handled, what the browser stores, or what the app talks to ever changes in a way that matters, this page should change in the same release.

Questions and corrections go to the public issue tracker.

Back to the guide index.