Projects / ₿launcher

Privacy policy

This Privacy Policy applies to ₿launcher, an Android home launcher published on Google Play as app.blauncher.

₿launcher is published by the individual developer identified on ₿launcher’s Google Play listing. For privacy questions, write to the developer contact email shown in the Developer contact section of ₿launcher’s Google Play listing.

The related Terms of Service cover the licence, the one-time unlock, and the limits of what the app does. A plain-language description of the app is on its overview page.

Summary

  • ₿launcher does not require an account.
  • ₿launcher does not operate its own backend server. There is no service to which your data could be sent.
  • ₿launcher contains no ads, no advertising SDK, no analytics SDK, no crash-reporting SDK, and no remote configuration.
  • ₿launcher does not sell or share personal data.
  • Your app list, your pinned and hidden and locked selections, and every launcher setting stay on your device.
  • ₿launcher makes exactly three kinds of network request: a Bitcoin spot price from Coinbase, Google Play Billing, and whatever you deliberately tap through to. None of them carries anything about your apps or your settings.
  • ₿launcher runs no background service and no scheduled work. It does nothing while you are not looking at it.

Permissions the app requests, and why

₿launcher declares five permissions and one optional device-admin registration. There is no location permission, no camera permission, no microphone permission, no contacts or calendar permission, and no storage permission anywhere in the manifest.

Internet

₿launcher declares INTERNET. It is used for the Bitcoin spot price and for Google Play Billing, both described under “Information sent off your device” below. No other network request exists in the app.

Billing

₿launcher declares com.android.vending.BILLING, which is what allows Google Play Billing to offer and restore the one-time unlock.

Biometrics

₿launcher declares USE_BIOMETRIC, and USE_FINGERPRINT on Android 8.1 and older. These let the app ask Android to show its own authentication prompt before a locked app opens, and before you change which apps are hidden, stealth, or locked.

Android performs the check. ₿launcher does not receive, process, or store your fingerprint, your face, your PIN, your pattern, or your password — it receives only a success or failure result. The prompt accepts biometrics or your device credential, whichever your device offers.

Set alarm

₿launcher declares com.android.alarm.permission.SET_ALARM. This is what lets a tap on the clock hand Android the standard “show alarms” intent so your clock app opens on the right screen. It grants no ability to read, create, or change your alarms, and it does nothing unless you tap the clock.

Screen lock (optional device admin)

If — and only if — you turn on “Double-tap to lock”, ₿launcher asks you to activate a device-admin component. Android requires an active device admin before an app may call lockNow().

That registration declares exactly one policy, force-lock. It cannot wipe your device, set or read a password, restrict the camera, or monitor anything, because no other policy is declared. ₿launcher deliberately does not use an accessibility service for this. You can deactivate it in Android settings at any time; the rest of the launcher is unaffected.

Package visibility

₿launcher does not request QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES. It uses a scoped <queries> declaration for launchable activities and clock apps, which is the narrower mechanism Android provides for launchers.

Information processed on your device

Your installed apps

₿launcher reads your apps through Android’s LauncherApps service, across every profile Android exposes to a launcher. For each launchable activity this provides its label, its package and component name, its icon, and the user profile it belongs to — which is how work-profile and dual-app entries appear as their own rows.

Because it queries launchable activities rather than installed packages, ₿launcher does not see apps with no launcher entry. It uses what it does see to draw your app list, search it, launch apps, pin them, group them, rename them, and hide or lock them.

This information is never uploaded. It is read from the operating system when a screen needs it and refreshed when Android reports that an app was installed, removed, or changed. It is not sent to the developer, to Coinbase, to Google, or to anyone else.

Launcher settings

₿launcher stores your preferences locally using Proto DataStore, in its own private app storage. The stored settings are:

  • pinned slots — the component name, profile, and position of each pinned app, and which slots are groups
  • groups — each group’s identifier, its label, and the apps in it
  • hidden, stealth, and locked app selections
  • custom app names you have set
  • theme mode, text size, whether app icons are shown, and the alignment of apps, clock, date, and price
  • whether the clock, date, and price open something on tap, and which app each opens
  • the apps assigned to swipe-left and swipe-right, and whether double-tap to lock is on
  • clock time zones for the main and second clock, and whether the second clock is shown
  • Bitcoin quote currency and refresh interval
  • the last Bitcoin price fetched and the time it was fetched
  • your onboarding answers, and how far through setup you are
  • a local record that the unlock is active, and any purchase token still awaiting acknowledgement

These are display and behaviour choices plus the identifiers of apps already on your device. There is no location data, no message content, no contact, no file, and no account in them, and none of it is uploaded to a developer-operated service, because there is not one.

Cached Bitcoin price

The last price ₿launcher fetched, its currency, and the moment it arrived are cached locally so the screen has something to show immediately and so the app can skip a request it does not need. This is public market data; it says nothing about you.

Purchase state

If you buy the unlock, ₿launcher stores a small local record that an entitlement exists, so the unlocked features keep working offline. It also stores any purchase token that Google Play has not yet confirmed as acknowledged, so an interrupted purchase can be completed on the next launch. Neither record contains payment details.

Android backup and device transfer

₿launcher allows Android’s standard app backup. Depending on your Android version and your device and Google account settings, its settings — the list above — may therefore be included in a cloud backup or a device-to-device transfer operated by Android and Google, and restored onto a new device.

This is worth knowing, because that list includes which apps you pinned, grouped, hid, or locked. If you would rather it were not backed up, turn off backup for ₿launcher, or backup generally, in your device settings. The backup is handled entirely by Android and Google; there is no developer-operated copy, and the developer cannot read it.

Information sent off your device

There are three, and this is all of them.

The Bitcoin price

₿launcher requests the current Bitcoin spot price from Coinbase’s public price endpoint over HTTPS. The request contains one piece of information: which currency you want the price in — USD, EUR, GBP, or JPY. Nothing else is attached. No identifier, no app list, no settings, no purchase state, no account.

As with any request your device makes to any server, Coinbase can observe the technical metadata that comes with it, such as your IP address and the time. That processing is governed by Coinbase’s own privacy practices, not by this policy. The response is a number, which the app displays and caches.

Be aware that this request is automatic. The price is a permanent part of the home screen and there is currently no setting that removes it, so while the home screen is in the foreground the app refreshes the price on your chosen interval — every minute by default, or up to every hour with the unlock. It stops as soon as the home screen leaves the foreground: there is no background service, no scheduled job, and no wake-up. Denying ₿launcher network access in your device settings also stops it, and the rest of the launcher continues to work.

Google Play Billing

₿launcher offers a single non-consumable in-app purchase, blauncher_premium. It is processed by Google Play. Google Play is the seller; the developer never sees or receives your payment card details, bank details, billing address, name, email address, or Google account.

Through the Google Play Billing library, ₿launcher may receive the limited purchase information it needs to grant and restore the unlock:

  • the product identifier that was purchased
  • purchase state
  • the purchase token and acknowledgement status needed to complete or restore the purchase
  • the localised price of the product, so the app can display it before you buy

This information is used only to unlock, acknowledge, and restore features on your device. It is not sent to any developer-operated server, because there is none. Google’s processing of your payment, purchase, device, and account information is governed by Google’s own policies and terms, including the Google Privacy Policy.

Links and apps you open

Everything else that leaves the app leaves because you tapped it, and it leaves as a standard Android intent handed to an app you chose:

  • The price indicator. By default a tap opens a Bitcoin summary at DuckDuckGo in your browser. You can point the tap at an app of your choice instead, or turn it off.
  • The clock and the date. A tap opens your clock or calendar app, or an app you nominate, or nothing.
  • Swipe shortcuts and pinned apps. These launch apps already on your device.
  • “Rate ₿launcher”. Opens ₿launcher’s own Google Play listing in the Play Store app, or in your browser if the Play Store is unavailable.
  • “App info” and “System settings”. Open the relevant Android settings screen.

Once you have crossed into another app, browser, or website, that destination’s own privacy policy governs what happens next. ₿launcher passes no information about you along with the intent.

Information ₿launcher does not collect

₿launcher does not operate user accounts and does not collect, store, or transmit any of the following to developer-operated services:

  • name, email address, or phone number
  • contacts, calendar, messages, photos, videos, audio, or files
  • location of any precision
  • your installed-app list, your pinned apps, your groups, or your hidden, stealth, and locked selections
  • which apps you open, when, or how often
  • payment card or bank details
  • advertising identifiers, device fingerprints, or any identifier used for tracking
  • analytics events, usage statistics, performance traces, or crash reports
  • biometric data of any kind

The app’s source contains an internal instrumentation interface for its setup flow. It is bound to an implementation that records nothing and sends nothing, no analytics library is present in the build, and there is nowhere for such an event to go.

Data sharing

₿launcher does not sell personal data and does not share personal data for advertising or analytics.

Information is processed by third parties only where a feature you use requires it:

  • Coinbase, which receives the currency you asked for and the ordinary metadata of the request
  • Google Play and Google Play Billing, when you view, purchase, acknowledge, or restore the unlock
  • Android and Google backup and device-transfer services, if enabled in your device settings, for the app’s settings
  • your browser, your chosen apps, or a destination website, when you tap something that opens one

Data retention and deletion

There is no server-side copy of anything, so there is nothing for the developer to retain or delete. Data on your device stays there until you remove it.

You can remove local ₿launcher data by:

  • changing or clearing individual settings and selections in the app
  • clearing ₿launcher’s storage in Android system settings
  • uninstalling ₿launcher, which deletes its private storage entirely

If Android has backed the app’s settings up to your Google account, that copy is managed by Google. Delete it through your Google account’s backup settings.

Purchase records are also held by Google Play and in your Google account purchase history. Those are controlled by Google, and you can manage purchases, refunds, and history through Google Play and your Google account settings.

₿launcher does not offer account deletion because it does not create or manage accounts.

Your choices

  • You can use ₿launcher without an account and without ever purchasing anything.
  • You can deny ₿launcher network access in Android settings. The price shows as unavailable; everything else keeps working.
  • You can leave double-tap to lock off, in which case no device-admin component is ever activated — and you can deactivate it later without affecting anything else.
  • You can turn off the tap actions on the clock, date, and price, so no tap ever opens anything outside the launcher.
  • You can turn off Android backup for ₿launcher if you do not want its settings copied to your Google account.
  • You can stop using ₿launcher as your home app at any time in Android’s default-apps settings, and uninstall it like any other app.

Security

Local data is kept in the app’s private storage, protected by Android’s app sandbox. The price request uses HTTPS. Google Play Billing uses Google’s own secure purchase flow. Authentication for locked apps is performed by Android’s system biometric prompt rather than by anything the app implements itself.

No method of storage or transmission is perfectly secure. ₿launcher reduces that risk structurally rather than by promise: it has no server, no account, no analytics or crash-reporting SDK, no background service, and almost nothing to transmit in the first place.

One limitation is worth stating plainly rather than leaving you to discover it. Hidden and stealth apps are hidden from ₿launcher’s own lists; they are not removed from your device, and other apps, Android’s settings, and the Play Store can still show them. Privacy Lock asks Android to confirm it is you before opening an app, and Android is the authority on that check; it is a strong deterrent, not a guarantee against someone with your unlocked device, physical access, and time.

Children’s privacy

₿launcher is a home launcher intended for general audiences. It is not designed for or directed to children under 13, is not a Families programme app, and collects no personal data from anyone, including children.

International users

Because no personal data is collected, transmitted to, or processed by the developer, there is no international transfer of your data by ₿launcher, and no developer-held record about you to access, correct, port, or erase. Rights you hold under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, the CCPA, or comparable laws remain available to you; a request under them will be answered honestly, which in practice means confirming that no such data exists.

Data you send to Google by purchasing through Google Play, or to Coinbase by displaying the price, is handled by them under their own policies, and your rights against them are exercised with them.

Changes to this policy

This Privacy Policy may be updated if ₿launcher’s features or data practices change. The effective date at the top of this page will be updated when that happens, and material changes will also be noted in the app’s Google Play release notes. This page remains available at its published address.

Google Play Data safety summary

For transparency, these are the answers this app supports on the Play Console Data safety form. If the app’s behaviour ever changes, this policy and that form are updated together.

  • Does the app collect or share any of the required user data types? No.
  • App activity, app info and performance. Not collected and not shared. Your installed apps and your interactions with them are read on device and stay there; there is no analytics or crash-reporting SDK in the app.
  • Personal info, financial info, location, health, messages, photos, audio, files, contacts, calendar. Not collected and not shared.
  • Device or other identifiers. Not collected and not shared. No advertising identifier is read.
  • Purchase history. Handled by Google Play as the seller; not collected by the app for its own purposes.
  • Is all user data encrypted in transit? Not applicable — the app transmits no user data. The requests it does make use HTTPS.
  • Can users request that data be deleted? Not applicable to server data, as none exists. On-device data is deleted in the app, by clearing app storage, or by uninstalling.