Privacy

fivebar counts visits without knowing who made them. This is what it keeps, what it does not, and for how long.

Site visitors

A site that uses fivebar loads a small script from fiveb.ar on its pages. Its owner chose to, and decides what their pages send; fivebar counts on their behalf, and they see the totals. fivebar sets no cookies and keeps nothing in the visitor’s browser.

For each page seen, the script sends the page’s address, the address of the page before it, the width of the window, and whether the browser says a script drives it. As the page is left, it sends how long it was on screen, how far down it was read, and how quickly it loaded. It also sends clicks on links to other sites, files downloaded, and anything the site’s own pages add, such as a sign-up, a page’s author or what was searched for on the site. Like any request a browser makes, each one carries the visitor’s IP address and user agent. A site can load the script and send what it counts through its own domain, and its server then passes the visitor’s IP address on to fivebar, with where they are if it knows, to be used as below.

What is kept

Counts, by site and by day: so many pageviews of a page, from a country, in a browser. Never a record of what one visitor did. What they are counted by:

• The page’s path, without its query string or anything after #.
• Where the visitor came from: the host of the page before, or a campaign tag in the address, such as utm_source.
• Country and city, and the network the visit came through, such as an internet provider, by its number, all worked out from the IP address, or as a site’s own server passes them on. They are looked up in DB-IP’s databases, which run on fivebar’s own servers and are sent nothing.
• Browser, operating system, and whether a phone, tablet or desktop.
• Time on screen, how far down the page was read, and how quickly it loaded.
• The host and path of a link to another site, and the path of a file downloaded.
• What the site’s own pages add, less any value that looks like an email address.
• What was searched for on the site, where its owner counts its searches: in lower case, cut to 100 characters, and never a search that looks like an email address or holds a number of 9 digits or more, such as a phone or card number.
• The page’s HTTP status, such as 404.
• Whether a visit was taken for a bot’s, and why, such as a crawler’s or one from a hosting network, with the name of a bot fivebar knows, from a list of its own, such as Google. A bot’s pageviews are counted apart from people’s, by the hour, by the page, where it came from, its country and network, and its browser and operating system, and nothing else it sends is kept.

The counts are kept until the site is deleted, which deletes them with it. There is no backup of them yet; once there is, it will be kept at Hetzner, in the EU, and a deleted site’s counts will stay in the backups taken before, until those are deleted in turn.

What is not

To tell one visitor from another, fivebar makes a code from a secret, the site, and the visitor’s IP address and user agent, one way, so the code cannot be turned back into either. The secret is replaced at midnight in the site’s time zone, and the old one is never kept, so tomorrow’s code for the same visitor is a different one, and nobody, fivebar included, can tell that a visitor today was here yesterday. The code itself is kept for 30 hours, longer than any day, then deleted, and a visit’s pages are joined by it until 30 minutes after the last. A visit taken for a bot’s gets no code at all.

So fivebar cannot find, show or delete one visitor’s visits: nothing it holds says which were theirs. To ask about a site’s analytics, ask the site. A content blocker that blocks fiveb.ar stops the script altogether.

fiveb.ar itself

fiveb.ar is counted by fivebar, exactly as above, signed in or not. In the app, clicks on links are not counted, and a site’s name, a sign-in link or an invite’s link in a page’s address is left out.

If you have an account

• Your email address, which is your account. There are no passwords: you sign in with a link emailed to you, which works once, within 15 minutes, or with a passkey you’ve added. A one-way hash of the link is kept beside the address until the link is used, or cleared out once it has run out. An address typed into Sign up, or one with no account typed into Sign in, is sent a link and kept the same way, and using the link makes its account. A site’s email reports go to it too, if you turn them on.
• Your sites, the groups they are in, their time zones, goals and search rules, whether their stats are public, which email reports you have turned on and when each was last sent, and the time zone you start new sites in. So is the traffic a site excludes, until it is removed: addresses, which can be your own, networks by number and sometimes name, and countries.
• The people you share a site with: each one’s address and role. Everyone a site is shared with sees its owner’s address; its owner and editors see everyone’s, and the invites waiting. An invite keeps the address it was sent to, its role, who sent it and a one-way hash of its link, until it is accepted or cancelled, or cleared out once its 7 days have run out, and sends that address one email, with the sender’s address. Where that address has an account, signing in on the way to accepting it, the sign-in link keeps the invite’s link as where it goes on to, until the sign-in link is used, or cleared out once it has run out. Everyone a site is shared with sees its settings, the addresses and networks it excludes among them.
• A cookie, __Host-fivebar, that keeps you signed in for 30 days, or until you sign out. Only a one-way hash of it is kept. Asking for a link on the way to connecting an app sets a second, __Host-fivebar-app, for 15 minutes. Opening the sign-in page in a browser with passkeys sets a third, __Host-fivebar-passkey, for 5 minutes, renewed while the page is open, whether or not you have an account, so a passkey’s sign-in can be finished only in the browser that began it: a one-way hash of it, and of each sign-in’s challenge, is kept until the sign-in is used, or cleared out within the hour once its 5 minutes have run out. All three are only for signing in, and fiveb.ar sets no others. On the one page where you pay, Paddle’s checkout may set Paddle’s own, on paddle.com, as below.
• The apps you connect, such as Claude or ChatGPT: each app’s name, where it sends you back to, whether you let it change settings, and the tokens it reads your stats with, which last an hour and are renewed for up to 30 days. An app that registers itself is kept for 90 days. Settings lists them, and disconnects any of them. What an app reads is then the app’s, under its own terms.
• The API tokens you make, for scripts that use the API: each one’s name, if you gave it one, whether it reads all your sites or which ones, when it was made and when it was last used, updated at most once an hour, and a one-way hash of it, never the token. Each lasts until you revoke it in Settings.
• The passkeys you add: each one’s name, if you gave it one, the ID and public key your device made for fiveb.ar, whether it is synced, a counter some devices keep, when it was added and when it was last used, and which of your browsers’ sessions it signed in. Never your fingerprint, face or screen lock, which stay on your device. Each lasts until you remove it in Settings. Opening the form to add one keeps a one-way hash of its challenge, and of the session that asked, until it is used, or cleared out within the hour once its 5 minutes have run out. Adding or removing one, or signing out everywhere else, emails your address to say so.
• Feedback an app sends fivebar for you, which fivebar asks the app to send only once you’ve seen it and agreed: the note, in your words, of up to 1,000 characters, what kind of note it is and the tool it is about, the host the app publishes its details at, the version of fivebar’s tools, and when it was sent. Only fivebar reads it. It is deleted with your account, or after a year, whichever comes first.

What your account holds is kept until it is deleted. Deleting a site in its settings deletes its counts at once. To have your account deleted, with the sites only it holds, email mail@fiveb.ar. A site it holds with others stays with them, and one it owns passes to one of them.

If you choose a plan

fivebar’s plans are sold by Paddle (Paddle.com Market Ltd, in the UK), our reseller. Paddle is the seller, the merchant of record: it takes the payment, adds any VAT or sales tax, and sends your receipts and invoices, and emails of its own about your plan, such as a reminder before a trial ends.

• What fivebar gives Paddle: your email address and your account’s number, so a plan is known to be yours.
• What Paddle holds, as its own, as the seller: what you give it to pay, your name, card, billing address, country and any tax ID, with your invoices. It keeps them where it chooses, under Paddle’s privacy notice, and they stay with it after your account is deleted, under its terms and the law on keeping invoices. fivebar never sees your card.
• Your plans, as Paddle last said each was: which customer of Paddle’s your account is, which plan, in which currency, what it costs, whether it is on its trial, paid, overdue or cancelled, and when it renews or ends. A plan that has ended is kept with your account, and so is when your trial began, as each account, and each address with its +tags, has one trial.
• Paddle’s messages saying a plan has changed, by their reference and what kind of change each was, for 30 days.
• If your plan ends unpaid: when fivebar found your sites with no plan, when it emailed you that they would stop being counted, and when they stopped, until you choose a plan again.
• Your billable pageviews, during a trial: each hour, fivebar adds up your sites’ pageviews and events since the trial began, from their counts, to end the trial at 1M. It keeps only when it ended a trial early.
• Paddle’s checkout, on /billing/checkout alone, the one page where you pay: it runs in Paddle’s frame, loaded from Paddle’s servers, under Paddle’s privacy notice. Paddle sees your IP address and browser there, as any site you visit does, and may set its own cookies, on paddle.com, never on fiveb.ar. No other page of fiveb.ar loads anything of Paddle’s.

If you joined the beta

Until sign-up opened, a form on the home page took your email address, your name, the web address of the site you would use fivebar on, and the day you gave them, so we could tell you when there was room for your site. It sent one email to say thanks, and joining again, or from a +tag of the same address, sent nothing. It is not an account, and it is kept until you come off the list. To come off it, reply to that email, or email mail@fiveb.ar.

Asking for a link to sign in or sign up, signing in with a passkey, checking a site with the installation checker, or an app registering itself, is limited per IP address, counted for a minute under a one-way code of the address, never the address, which is deleted within the hour. The links sent, and passkey sign-ins begun, are limited per network too, the same way, and the links sent to the +tags of one inbox are limited together, counted for a day under a one-way code of the inbox, never the address. The checker keeps nothing of what it reads. Using the API with a token is limited per account, the same way. So are invites to share a site, counted for a day by the account sending them and by the inbox they go to, under a one-way hash of each, and for a minute from everyone.

Logs

Requests are not logged. What fivebar’s code writes to its logs when something goes wrong is kept for finding faults, on its servers in Germany; the servers near visitors hold theirs in memory alone. It never includes a visitor’s IP address or user agent, or any email address: an account is named by a number of fivebar’s own.

The calls an app makes to fivebar’s tools are counted: by the day, the tool, the kind of app, by where it publishes its details, and, where the call was refused or its filters matched nothing, what was wrong with it, such as a country given as a name rather than a code. The counts keep no account and nothing a call asked, and are kept for 30 days.

Where it lives

Nothing fivebar keeps is ever at rest outside the EU, or on a US company’s server. Paddle, which sells our plans, keeps what you give it to pay as its own.

• fivebar’s servers in Germany, at Hetzner, keep the counts, accounts and their plans, the beta’s list, the apps you connect, each site’s settings, the visitor codes, the visits still going on, the daily secrets and the logs.
• Each visitor’s request is taken by one of fivebar’s servers near the visitor, which can be anywhere in the world and run by companies anywhere, the US among them. So they keep nothing on disk. Each holds the day’s secrets, each site’s settings and its own logs in memory alone, and what a page sent, once coded, in memory too, until it is sent on to Germany, within seconds and never more than a day later.
• Emails are sent by a company in the Netherlands, which keeps them in Europe.
• What you send elsewhere yourself, to an app you connect or to the inbox an email report goes to, is yours to place, under their terms.

Infrastructure says what each part holds, in memory or on disk, and for how long.

Who else handles it

Nothing is sold, or given to anyone to use for their own ends. The companies that run fivebar’s servers handle it only to run them, as the companies that send fivebar’s emails and keep its inbox handle your email address only to do that. fivebar’s own inbox is Proton’s, a Swiss company, which keeps email sent to fivebar in Switzerland, Germany or Norway, encrypted so that Proton cannot read what it says. The service that answers for fivebar’s name is asked by a visitor’s own internet provider which server is nearest, and may be told part of their IP address to answer it; it is sent no request. Paddle, which sells fivebar’s plans, has your email address, your account’s number and what you give it to pay, as the seller, as If you choose a plan says. fiveb.ar runs no other company’s analytics or advertising.

Why

fivebar is run by Jason Cartwright, a sole trader, who decides what it keeps and why. An account’s details are kept to run the account you asked for, an invite’s to send the invite a site’s owner or editor asked for, a plan’s to sell you the plan you chose and give each account one trial, an address, name and site on the beta’s list to tell you when there was room, as you asked, and the logs to keep it working and secure. The counts are kept for the site’s owner, who uses fivebar to see how their site is used, and who is responsible for that choice.

Changes

When what fivebar keeps changes, this page changes with it. It last changed on 15 October 2026.