Anchor
There are no accounts, no sign-in, no telemetry, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking of any kind.
Anchor Dock is a floating application dock for Windows. This document is the privacy policy referenced from the app's Settings ▸ About page and from the Microsoft Store listing.
1. Personal information we collect
None. Anchor Dock does not collect, transmit, sell, share or otherwise disclose any personal information to the developer or to any third party. There is no server operated by the developer for this app, and no data of any kind is sent to one.
2. Data the app stores on your device
Everything Anchor Dock saves stays on your own PC, in your own user profile. Nothing in this list leaves your device.
| What | Where | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Your docks, pinned items, layout, keyboard shortcuts and settings | dock.json in the app's per-user data folder | So your dock is the same next time you sign in |
| Cached website icons (favicons) for pinned web links | An IconCache folder alongside dock.json | So a site's icon is fetched at most once and still shows offline |
A diagnostic log (anchor.log, overwritten on each start) | Your Windows temp folder | Local troubleshooting only. It records app events such as which pinned item was launched and any unexpected error |
The data folder is %AppData%\Anchor for the portable release. For the Microsoft Store package, Windows redirects it into the app's own per-user package storage, which Windows deletes when you uninstall the app.
Pinned items are things you chose to add, so dock.json contains the file paths, folder paths and web addresses you pinned, and any custom names or icons you gave them. Anchor Dock does not read the contents of your files: launching a pinned item hands it to Windows exactly as double-clicking it in File Explorer would, and a folder fly-out lists a folder's entry names only.
You can export this data at any time (Settings ▸ General ▸ Backup) and delete it at any time by removing the data folder or uninstalling the app.
3. Network access
Anchor Dock makes network requests in exactly two situations, and in no others.
- Website icons for pinned web links. When you pin a web link, the app requests that site's icon, first directly from the site itself (
https://<site>/favicon.ico). Only if that fails does it fall back to DuckDuckGo's public icon service (https://icons.duckduckgo.com/ip3/<site>.ico), which receives only the site's domain name and no information about you. The result is cached locally so the request happens at most once per site. If you never pin a web link, the app makes no network requests at all. - An optional update check, portable release only, and off by default. In the portable (non-Store) release, the update check can be switched on. When it is, the app asks the public GitHub releases API once at startup whether a newer version exists. No account, token or identifier is sent beyond the HTTP request itself, nothing is uploaded, and nothing is ever downloaded or installed automatically. This feature does not exist in the Microsoft Store version, which is updated by the Microsoft Store itself.
Launching a pinned web link opens it in your default browser; from that point onward your browser's own privacy policy applies.
4. Children's privacy
Anchor Dock is a general-purpose desktop utility. It is not directed at children, and since it collects no personal information from anyone, it collects none from children.
5. Permissions the app requests
The Microsoft Store package declares one restricted capability, runFullTrust. Anchor Dock is a launcher: it needs full trust to start the applications, files, folders and links you pin, and to read their icons from Windows, which a sandboxed app cannot do. It declares no other capability, and it requires no administrator rights.
6. Security
Because no personal information is collected or transmitted, there is none held by the developer to secure. The data described in section 2 is stored in your Windows user profile and protected by your Windows account. Network requests described in section 3 use HTTPS.
Note that dock.json describes programs that can be started, so treat it as you would any file that can launch software on your PC.
7. Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the updated version will be published at this URL and the "Last updated" date above will change. Material changes will also be noted in the app's changelog.
8. Contact
Questions or privacy concerns:
- Issues: github.com/framedparadox/anchor-dock/issues
- Source code: github.com/framedparadox/anchor-dock
Anchor Dock is free and open source software released under the MIT License. This policy covers the app as distributed by the publisher named above; a third party redistributing a modified build is responsible for its own privacy practices.