Privacy

This is a personal site. It collects an email address if you ask for the demo, and — only if you allow it — measures traffic with Google Analytics. All of it is described below, plainly.

Your choice, asked once

The first time you visit, a small bar at the foot of the page asks whether this site may use Google Analytics. Until you answer, and if you choose No thanks, neither loads: no request goes to Google, and no cookie is set. Your answer is kept in this browser only (the ommais-consent key, below). To change it, use Privacy choices — also in the footer of every page.

Analytics: Google Analytics, only if you allow it

If you choose Allow, pages load Google Analytics (tag G-JELENGERFL) from Google's servers. Google sets a cookie (_ga, lasting up to two years) that lets it recognise a returning browser, and in doing so receives your IP address, the pages you viewed and when. Google processes that data under its own terms and may use it across its services; this site uses it only to see aggregate numbers — how many people read, from which countries, on which pages.

This is a change from how the site used to run, which was with no analytics at all. The trade was made knowingly: knowing which posts people actually read decides what gets written next, and Google's measurement was chosen over a self-hosted alternative for the same reason everything else here is boring and standard. If you prefer not to be measured, choose No thanks — the site works identically without it.

Videos

Some articles include a YouTube video. Until you press its play button, nothing is loaded from YouTube: the box you see is drawn by this site. Pressing play loads the player from youtube-nocookie.com, and from then on YouTube (Google) receives your IP address and what you watch, under its own privacy policy.

Affiliate links

Some articles recommend products with links to Amazon and other shops. Those are affiliate links: if you buy after following one, this site may earn a commission, at no cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, Eric Varney earns from qualifying purchases. Following a link takes you to that shop, which then works under its own privacy policy; nothing about the click is recorded here.

The one thing collected: an email address

If you enter your address to open the OMMAIS demo, that address is stored. Alongside it, three things:

• the date and time you entered it;
• the two-letter country code the network hands over with the request;
• which page you were on when you entered it.

It is also checked, at the moment you submit, whether the domain actually receives mail — so a typo like gmial.cmo can be told apart from a working address. The answer is stored as a yes or no beside it.

Not collected: your IP address, your browser or device, your operating system, your passphrase, anything you typed into the demo, which models you chose, what the models answered, the names or contents of any file or folder you indexed, or any image you attached. Those never reach this site — see below.

Why it is kept: to know how many people tried the software, and to be able to say when the next version is out. It is not sold, rented, shared or handed to any third party, and there is no mailing platform involved — the addresses sit in a database belonging to this site and nowhere else.

The demo runs in your browser, not on this site

The OMMAIS demo runs in your browser. By default it sends your prompts from the browser to a free cloud model service (described under cloud models below); if you run Ollama, you can switch it to the AI models installed on your own machine instead, and then everything stays on your computer. Either way, your prompts, the models' replies, anything you paste into the context box, any files or folders you index, and any image you attach go only between your browser and the model service you chose. They are never uploaded here, because there is nowhere for them to go — this site has no server that can run a model, no endpoint that accepts a model's output, and no endpoint that accepts a file.

Letting an expert look something up

There is a checkbox in the demo labelled “Let experts look things up”. It is off unless you switch it on, and it is one of the few things on this page that send anything off your machine — the others are cloud models, below.

With it on, an expert that needs a fact it is unsure of — something after its training cutoff, a current figure, a specific paper — can ask for a lookup. Your browser then queries Wikipedia, Wikidata, DuckDuckGo and Crossref directly. What goes to them is the short search phrase the expert asked for, not your whole prompt, not your files and not the conversation.

Those requests go from your browser straight to those services. They do not pass through this site, and there is deliberately no proxy here that could see them: routing them through this server would hide your address from Wikipedia and reveal your queries to me, which is the worse trade. Each of those services has its own privacy policy and will see your IP address, exactly as if you had visited them yourself.

The interface says when a lookup is running and which seat asked for it, and the summary under each answer records how many lookups left your machine. Leave the box unticked and none of this happens.

Cloud models

By default the demo uses a cloud service: LLM7.io, which answers without an account or a key, so the first question works with no setup and answers quickly. That is the default whether or not Ollama is running on your computer. The chat says so — “You are on the default cloud service: LLM7.io” — and the status strip at the bottom reads default cloud: LLM7.io for as long as it is in use. Your prompts then go from your browser straight to LLM7.io, under its privacy policy; they do not pass through this site. If Ollama is running, your own models are listed in every seat in Settings; switch the seats to them and nothing goes to LLM7.io. The demo remembers that choice on this device. LLM7's free service has a per-minute limit shared by everyone using it anonymously, so if a request fails, try switching cloud providers in Settings.

Under Cloud providers in the demo's setup you can use models from OpenRouter, Groq, Google Gemini, Mistral, SiliconFlow, Cohere, OpenAI, Anthropic and others, with your own API key — or from LLM7.io, Pollinations and OVHcloud, which need none.

Once you choose a cloud model for a seat, the prompts that seat is given — your question, and whatever context the demo passes it — go from your browser straight to that provider, under your account and its privacy policy. They do not pass through this site, and neither does your key. The interface marks every cloud model with its provider and whether it is free, on a free tier, or paid; paid models are billed by the provider to your account, not by this site.

Your keys are kept in the tab's memory and forgotten when it closes. If you set a passphrase, they are instead encrypted with it and saved in your own browser alongside your sessions — never in plain text, and never sent here. Disconnect removes a key from this device.

The optional passphrase, and what it does

The demo asks for an email address and, optionally, a passphrase. They are not the same kind of thing and it is worth being exact about the difference:

• The email address is sent to this site and stored, as described above.
• The passphrase is never sent anywhere. It is not stored, not transmitted, not hashed-and-uploaded, and not recoverable. Your browser turns it into an encryption key on your own machine and the key is discarded when you close the tab.

If you set one, your conversations and the index of any files you added are encrypted with that key and written into your browser's own storage on your own device. Coming back and entering the same address and passphrase decrypts them. This is not your site account — the chat's saved sessions never touch the accounts described below — so there is no password reset, and no way for me to help if the passphrase is forgotten, because I have never had it. Anyone else using the same computer sees encrypted bytes they cannot read.

Leave the passphrase blank, or press Continue without saving, and nothing at all is stored: the conversation exists only while the tab is open and is gone when you close it, which is how the demo behaved before this option existed.

The encryption uses your browser's built-in cryptography (PBKDF2 to turn the passphrase into a key, AES-GCM to encrypt with it). That costs a fraction of a second of your processor, once, when you sign in. Nothing runs in the background, and nothing here mines cryptocurrency or uses your machine for any purpose other than the models you asked it to run.

Signed in with Google: what unlocks your chat

If you are signed in on this site, OMMAIS opens without a passphrase. Your conversations, indexed files and saved keys are still encrypted and stored only in your own browser, on your own device — they are never sent here. What changes is where the key comes from:

• This site keeps one random 256-bit key for your account, and gives it only to you, signed in, on this site. Your browser uses it to encrypt and decrypt your chat, holds it in memory only, and forgets it when you sign out or close the tab.
• So opening your saved conversations takes both your device and your account. The site has the key but never the conversations; your device has the conversations but never keeps the key.
• Deleting your account deletes the key, which leaves any copy on your device permanently unreadable. The key is not part of Download my data, because that file may be shared.

If you used a passphrase before, the chat offers once to move those sessions to your account: you type the old passphrase, and everything is re-encrypted on your own device. Nothing is uploaded in the process.

What is stored in your own browser

None of this is cookies (the two account cookies are described below) and none of it is ever transmitted. It sits in your browser's storage, readable only by this site, on your device:

• orchestra-demo-seats — which model you picked for each seat, so the demo does not ask again next time.
• orchestra-demo-joined — a single flag so the demo does not ask for your address twice in one session. Cleared when you close the browser.
• orchestra-demo-email — the address you entered, so a returning visit does not make you retype it. Also cleared when you close the browser.
• Only if you set a passphrase: a database named orchestra-demo, holding your saved conversations and the index of any files you added. Everything meaningful in it is encrypted. The parts left readable are the ones the interface needs before it can decrypt anything: an identifier derived from your address, the date each item was saved, how many turns a conversation has, and which embedding model indexed your files. Your messages, the answers, the conversation titles, the file paths and the file contents are all inside the encrypted portion.
• read:<post> — the day you last read a blog post, so your read is counted at most once a day (see below). theme — light or dark, if you used the switch. share-mastodon-server — your Mastodon server, if you shared a post there. ommais-consent — your answer to the analytics question, yes or no. popular-cache — the list of most-read posts and when it was fetched, kept for a few hours so it is not asked for on every page.
• Only if you use the site as an app, or open a game: caches named ommais-pages, ommais-games and ommais-static, holding copies of this site's own public pages, games and images so they open without a connection. They hold nothing you typed, nothing about your account and nothing from the chat — those requests are never stored.

Clearing site data in your browser removes all of it, including the saved sessions — permanently, since there is no copy anywhere else. The demo also offers an Export button, which writes those sessions to a file you keep; that file is still encrypted and still needs the same address and passphrase to open.

Links out, and one that earns a commission

Books link to Amazon, papers to SSRN, software to Gumroad. Those are other companies' sites with their own privacy practices, and once you click through you are on their terms rather than these. The Amazon links carry an Associates tag, which means a purchase may earn a small commission at no cost to you — disclosed on every page carrying one — and it is Amazon, not this site, that sets a cookie when you arrive there.

Server logs

The site is hosted on Cloudflare, which keeps short-lived operational logs of requests the way every web host does, in order to serve traffic and stop abuse. That is Cloudflare's processing under their own terms, not analytics collected for me, and no profiles are built from it.

Site accounts: comments, likes and the forum

Signing in is optional and only needed to comment, like or post in the forum. You sign in with Google; there is no password on this site. From the one you choose, this site receives:

• your name, which becomes your display name (you can change it);
• your email address, used only to recognise the site's admin and to identify you if you write in — it is never shown to anyone;
• from Google, a link to your profile picture, shown as your avatar;
• an ID the provider makes for this site, so it can recognise you next time.

It does not receive your Google password, your contacts, your files, or anything else, and it keeps no IP addresses. What is stored: your display name, picture link, the short bio you choose to write, the date you joined, which sign-in methods you linked, and your active sign-ins. Your comments and posts will be stored as you write them.

Two cookies are set when you sign in, and none before: __Host-ommais_session, which keeps you signed in for up to 30 days (scripts on the page cannot read it, and the site stores only a scrambled fingerprint of it), and ommais_signed_in, which says only "yes", so pages know to ask who you are. A third, __Host-ommais_oauth, exists for at most ten minutes while a sign-in is in progress.

Comments, forum posts and likes are public: anyone reading a post or a forum thread sees what was written in it, with each writer's display name and picture, and how many likes the post and each comment have (not who gave them). Your profile page lists your recent comments and forum posts. When someone replies to you or likes your comment, a notification is kept for you. If you report a comment, only the site admin sees that you did and the reason you gave.

GIFs and pictures in comments are links, not uploads. They load from GIPHY, Imgur, Wikimedia, Unsplash or X, so opening a thread with one in it lets that company see your IP address, as viewing any picture on their site would. Searching for a GIF sends your search words to GIPHY. The share buttons are ordinary links: nothing from Facebook or X loads on this site unless you click one.

On your account page you can change your name and bio, download everything stored about your account (including your comments and likes), sign out on every device, and delete your account, which removes it at once. Your comments and forum posts are erased with it; where someone had replied to one, a "[deleted]" marker keeps their reply in place, and a thread you started that others answered stays under the title "[deleted]". You must be 13 or older to have an account.

Having your address removed

Email ericvarney87@gmail.com and ask. No form, no reason required — the row is deleted. You are welcome to ask what is stored about you, and the honest answer will be short: one address, one date, a country code and a page name. Your saved sessions are not on that list because they are not here — they are on your own device, and clearing this site's data in your browser is what deletes those.

Children

Nothing here is aimed at children, and the demo requires installing developer software before it does anything at all. If you believe a child has entered an address, use the email above and it will be removed.

Read counts

Reading a blog post adds one to that post's count for the day, which is how the Popular this week list is made. What is sent is the post's name and nothing else; what is stored is the post, the day and a number. No address, cookie, account or device detail is kept with it, so the counts cannot say who read what. Counts older than 60 days are deleted.

Game counts

The arcade is counted the same way. A game page sends the game's name and one of four things: that it was played, how many seconds it was on screen when you left, or that you followed a link from it to OMMAIS or to the Marketplace. What is stored is the game, the day, the kind of event and two numbers. No address, cookie, account or device detail is kept with it. Counts older than 90 days are deleted.

OMMAIS TV

Choosing a channel asks this site what that channel is showing; the site asks YouTube and remembers the answer for a few minutes, so nothing about you goes to YouTube at that point. Pressing Play loads the broadcaster's own player from YouTube's privacy-enhanced domain (youtube-nocookie.com) and YouTube's player script, and from then on YouTube's own privacy policy covers what you watch, as it would on youtube.com. Overnight films and classic episodes play straight from the Internet Archive, which sees your request for the file like any download. "Listen with the screen off" plays the same kind of public-domain files (films, classic episodes and old-time radio) from the Internet Archive as sound, and shows what is playing on your phone's lock screen; nothing about it is sent to this site. The last channel you picked (tv-last) and the list of channels you keep (tv-mine) are remembered in your browser only. Rumble channels play in Rumble's own embedded player, loaded only when you press Play, under Rumble's privacy policy. "Ask OMMAIS" sends the channel and what is on along with your question to OMMAIS, and nowhere else.

Location, for game scores only. To show playoff games for your state's teams, the site reads the approximate state or province that Cloudflare (which runs this site) already works out from every connection. It is used to choose the games, and to suggest local stations near you, in that one answer, and is not stored, logged or sent anywhere. For "Your antenna area", the page is also given Cloudflare's rough reading of where the connection comes from, rounded to about seven miles, and works out in your own browser which stations' transmitters are within antenna range; that too is never stored. The schedule follows your browser's own clock and time zone, which never leave your device.

Independent authors' books

An author who lists a book does so signed in, and what they send (title, author name, description, genre, buy links, website and cover) is stored with their account so they can see the listing's status. Once a listing is approved, everything except the account link is published on the book's page, and the cover is kept with the site's files rather than in the database.

The buy buttons on those books go through this site first, which adds one to that book's count for the day and then sends you on to the store. Only the book, the day and a number are stored: no address, cookie or account. Search-engine robots are not counted. The author sees the totals for their own books; nobody sees who clicked.

Visits to a book's page are counted the same way (the book, the day, a number), at most once a day from your browser, which remembers the day it last counted in its own storage.

Payments

Listing fees and ebooks bought on this site are paid through Stripe, in a payment form Stripe runs inside our page. Your card details go to Stripe and never reach this site. Stripe's script loads only when you press a pay button. For an ebook, the author is the seller: the payment goes to the author's own Stripe account, and the author can see the buyer's email address there, as with any sale. This site keeps a record of each purchase (the book, the amount, the email address Stripe confirms, the number of downloads, and your account if you were signed in) so the download link works and the author's sales can be counted.

An author who sells here connects their own Stripe account; this site stores only that account's ID and whether Stripe says it can take payments. An uploaded ebook is kept privately in the site's database and is sent only to people who bought it.

Security

How the site protects your account and conversations — and what it does not claim, such as SOC 2 — is on the security page.

Changes

If what the site collects changes, this page changes with it — it is written from the code rather than from a template, and every claim on it was checked against the built site.

Last updated 3 October 2026.