Privacy

Chess Knight runs on one computer that we own, not on a big cloud. Your games, and what the coach finds in them, stay there.

What your account keeps

• Your email and a scrambled form of your password, so you can sign in.
• Your first name, if you give it (only you and the coach see it). Your username (other players see it).
• The games you import from chess.com or Lichess or play here, their reviews, and your lessons and your progress in them.
• Settings → Delete account removes your account, your games, their reviews and your lessons. A few things stay, as the Terms say. A live game stays in your opponent’s history. We keep reports and their outcomes. We replace the weekly backup copy within two weeks.
• Report a problem: what you write, your first name and any screenshot go to the site’s private list of things to fix. This list is on GitHub, and only the people who run the site can see it.

Payments

• If you pay for a plan, Stripe takes the payment. You type your card details into Stripe’s secure fields (on our checkout page, or on Stripe’s own page), so they go to Stripe, never to us. Stripe’s privacy policy says what Stripe keeps.
• We keep only your Stripe customer number, your plan, its status (for example, active or canceled) and the date it renews or ends. We never see or keep your card number.
• We give Stripe your email address, so Stripe can send your receipts.
• When you delete your account, we cancel your plan and delete what we keep about it. Stripe keeps its own record of your payments, as the law requires.

How the site uses its own analytics

To make Chess Knight better, the site notes how people use it. We built this ourselves. Nothing goes to Google, Facebook or any other company. We never sell or share it, or use it for advertising.

What it notes:

• Which screens you open, how long they stay open, and which buttons and links you press.
• Where taps land on a screen, and where the mouse rests on a computer. We add these up on a grid (a “heatmap”) to see what people try to press. We keep only the total for each spot, never the path of one person. On the chessboard, we note only that it was tapped, not where. Your moves are already in your games.
• How far down each page people scroll, and how long each part of it stays on screen.
• When you finish sign-up, open a review or finish a lesson. This shows us where new players get stuck.
• Problems: errors in the page, buttons that do not respond, the same spot pressed again and again, and how fast pages load.
• A random number that your browser makes to tell visits apart. Where we ask first, we keep it only after you allow it.
• Your account number, when you are signed in.
• The size of your screen (phone, tablet or computer).
• Your country, from the network (nothing more exact).

What it never notes: anything you type (your name, messages, passwords, searches), recordings of your screen, your IP address, or anything from other websites.

Why: to find what is confusing, what is broken and what to build next. We also use it to try a change on some players before everyone gets it. Only the site’s owner and the tools that help run the site see it. Sometimes an error or a stuck spot affects several players. Then a summary of it can go into the site’s list of things to fix on GitHub. The summary says how many players and on which screen, but never who.

How long: we keep the details for 13 months. After that, we keep only daily totals.

In the EU, the UK and Switzerland, we ask first

If you visit from there, the site asks you once if it may count how you use it. You see two buttons: No thanks and Allow. Until you say yes, the site notes nothing from the list above and keeps no random number in your browser. The site works the same either way.

We keep your answer in your browser, and with your account if you are signed in. We keep its date and this page’s version with it. If this page changes what we collect, we ask you again.

To change your answer: use Settings → Help improve Chess Knight, or the button below. Off stops it for your account on every device. It also deletes what was noted about your account and this browser. If your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control, the site collects nothing, wherever you are.

We try some changes on a few players first

Sometimes we show a change (new words, a different first step) to some players before everyone, to see if it helps. Your account decides which version you see. If you allow analytics, the random number in your browser decides. Without analytics, you still see one version or the other. We just do not count it.

Pages counted with nothing about you

Each day, the server counts how many times it sends out each page. It also notes if the page went to the EU, the UK or Switzerland, or to another place. This keeps nothing in your browser, and your browser sends nothing for it. Nothing in it can tell who you are. It shows us how much of the site’s use the analytics above can see. The server does not do this when your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control.

What we keep in your browser so the site works

The site needs these to do what you ask. So we keep them without asking, and we never use them for analytics:

• the sign-in cookie, while you are signed in;
• your settings: the theme, sounds, the coach’s voice, the choices for your next game, and drafts in Studio;
• a random name for this browser while it reviews your games, so two tabs do not review the same game;
• if this browser signed in before, so the page opens on “Sign in” and not on “Create an account”.

The site comes to you through Cloudflare. Cloudflare may set its own short-lived cookie to tell people from bots.

This page’s version: 10 October 2026.

Children

Children play chess here too. We use the analytics above only to run and improve the site. We never use it for advertising, or to build a profile of any one child.

Questions

Use Report a problem in the app’s menu. It comes straight to us.