Privacy Policy

Overview

TechCompare ("we", "our", or "us") operates this website. Most of the site, including all calculators, comparison tools, and the benchmark itself, runs entirely in your browser and never sends anything to us. The one exception is the WebGPU benchmark leaderboard, which only collects data if you choose to click Submit. This page describes exactly what that means.

Data we do not collect

We never ask for and never store:

• Usernames, email addresses, or account credentials.
• Your IP address in our application database (standard short-lived TLS log entries on our hosting provider are unavoidable, see "Log files" below).
• Payment information (the site is free to use).
• Tracking cookies for advertising. We do not currently set any first-party tracking cookies.

Local calculators and tools

Every comparison, unit conversion, and calculator on the site runs locally in your browser. Inputs you type into those tools are never transmitted to us. Your saved preferences (unit choices, theme, benchmark history) live in your browser's local storage and are not sent anywhere.

WebGPU benchmark - submitting a result

Submission is strictly opt-in: clicking Run Benchmark does nothing over the network. Only when you click Submit to GPU Leaderboard do we send anything. If you do submit, we store two separate records:

1. The submission itself (shown publicly after approval)

Submissions are held for moderator approval before appearing on the public leaderboard, and the leaderboard only shows scores aggregated per GPU model, not per submission. Each submission row contains:

• The GPU name reported by your browser (e.g. "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070").
• The GPU type bucket (dedicated / integrated / software).
• Your browser family and name (e.g. "Chrome 147").
• Your operating system family (e.g. "Windows", "Android").
• The overall composite score and a performance tier.
• The five per-stage scores (raster, compute, texture, raymarch, stability) and their raw measured metrics.
• The wall-clock duration of each benchmark stage.
• A submission timestamp.

2. Device diagnostics (private, admin-only)

Alongside each submission we also record a device-diagnostics row. This is never shown on the public leaderboard; it is readable only by site moderators through a restricted admin interface, and it is used only to detect fraudulent submissions (software renderers, suspected botting, duplicate devices gaming the leaderboard) and to improve how we normalize GPU names. The diagnostics row contains, when your browser provides it:

• Full user-agent string, platform name, preferred language(s).
• Time zone and UTC offset.
• Screen width & height, device pixel ratio, color depth.
• CPU thread count (hardwareConcurrency) and reported device memory.
• Maximum touch points the device reports.
• Battery status (present / charging / level), when the browser exposes the Battery API.
• Whether motion-sensor APIs (accelerometer / gyroscope) are exposed.
• Network connection type, effective speed bucket, downlink estimate, and data-saver flag, when exposed.
• The raw GPU strings reported by WebGPU and WebGL, plus vendor, architecture, and device identifiers.
• Whether WebGPU fell back to a software renderer.
• A SHA-256 hash of a stable fingerprint derived from a handful of the fields above. The hash cannot be reversed into the original values. It allows us to rate-limit submissions per device and to detect duplicates without storing a persistent identifier or cookie.

We do not collect audio/canvas fingerprints, font lists, battery charge/discharge timing, WebRTC IP leaks, or any other high-entropy signal beyond what is listed above. We do not link the device-diagnostics row to any other service or account.

How submissions are used

• Aggregation. Approved scores are averaged per GPU model and published on the public leaderboard.
• Moderation. Moderators review pending submissions to catch mis-identified GPUs, software renderers, and obvious fraud.
• Abuse prevention. The SHA-256 device hash is used to apply a short per-device cooldown so a single device cannot flood the leaderboard. If a device is found to be submitting fraudulent scores, we may block further submissions from that hash.
• Normalizer improvement. Raw GPU strings are occasionally reviewed in aggregate to improve how we group GPUs that the browser reports inconsistently (e.g. the same phone chip reported as both "qualcomm adreno-7xx" and "Adreno (TM) 750").

Log files

As with most websites, our hosting provider maintains short-lived server access logs that include your IP address, user-agent, and requested URL. These logs exist for availability and abuse-response purposes, are not copied into our application database, are not linked to benchmark submissions, and are retained according to our hosting provider's policy.

Local storage

Your browser's local storage is used to remember preferences (unit settings, theme) and your benchmark run history. This data stays on your device and is never transmitted to us. You can clear it from your browser settings at any time.

Retention and deletion

Approved leaderboard submissions are retained so that aggregate scores remain stable over time. The device-diagnostics row linked to each submission is retained for the same period. Because submissions are anonymous, we can only delete a specific submission if you can identify it, typically by providing the submission ID shown in the moderation queue or the SHA-256 device hash from your device. Requests can be sent through the site's support channels.

Third-party services

The leaderboard backend is hosted on Supabase. Site assets are served by our hosting provider. These providers process data strictly on our behalf and under their own security controls. We do not currently embed third-party advertising or analytics scripts on the benchmark page.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, in particular when the benchmark collects a new field. Material changes will be announced by updating the "Last updated" date below.