The short version
You never need to give us anything to use the site: as a guest, every score is calculated and kept in your own browser. If you choose to sign in, we keep a small account (your email or sign-in provider, a username and the profile details you add), your ranked runs, and a copy of your progress so it follows you between devices. Your username, character, profile and ranked results are public on the leaderboards unless you make your profile private or step off the boards. Custom text never leaves your device either way. Google Analytics tells us how many people visit and which pages they use. Google AdSense shows the ads that pay for hosting. Both use cookies, and if you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland they only do so once you have agreed.
Who we are
Presspace (presspace.org) is a free typing test and practice site run by a small team. It started in Beira, Mozambique. In this policy "we" and "us" mean the people who run Presspace. You can reach us at presspaceorg@gmail.com about anything on this page.
What we store in your browser
To work, the site saves information in your browser's local storage (a small storage area on your own device, separate from cookies). Every item we save uses a key that starts with tf_. This includes:
- Results: your test history (the most recent 250 runs), personal records, lifetime totals, per-key accuracy and timing for the heatmap, letter-pair timings, and progress in lessons, Marathon and the daily streak.
- Settings: theme, any custom themes you make, font, sound pack and volume, language, difficulty, reduced motion and similar preferences.
- Achievements: which achievements you have earned and your XP level.
- Custom texts: any text you paste into Custom mode and choose to keep.
If you do not sign in, none of this is sent to us, and we have no copy of your results. That also means we cannot recover your data if it is lost, so please export it if it matters to you (see your rights and controls). If you do sign in, see optional accounts below for what is copied to your account.
When you sign in, your browser also keeps your sign-in session under a key named presspace-auth, a note of when it last synced (presspace-sync), and today's Daily words (presspace-daily).
We never send your keystrokes, your results or your custom text to Google Analytics, Google AdSense or anyone else.
Optional accounts
Signing in is optional. It exists for the leaderboards, a public profile and keeping your progress on more than one device. You sign in with your Google account. We use Supabase to run accounts and the database behind them; our project is hosted in London (eu-west-2).
What an account holds
- Sign-in details: the email address, account ID, name and profile picture address Google shares with us when you sign in. We never see or store a password.
- Your profile: your username, and anything you choose to add: a display name, country, keyboard and a one-line bio. Also your character (the items you dress it in), the title you wear, the achievements you pin, and your privacy choices.
- Ranked runs: for each run on a leaderboard, its speed, accuracy and when it happened. To check that a run was really typed, the server receives what you typed for each word and the timing of each keystroke (not which key, only whether it was right, wrong, a space or a backspace). We keep that keystroke record only for your personal bests and your best Daily of each day, so top runs can be replayed and checked.
- Game and mode scores: the score and length of each game, challenge or test you finish while signed in, for its leaderboard.
- Synced progress: a copy of what the site keeps in your browser (results history, records, statistics, achievements, lesson progress and settings), so it appears on every device you sign in on. Custom texts are not synced. From that copy we also keep a few figures for your profile: your achievements and when you earned them, your current and best daily streak, how many words you have typed, and how many tests you finished on each day of the last year.
What is public
By default, your username, display name, character, title, level, country, keyboard, bio, achievements, streaks, practice calendar, number of tests, time spent typing, words typed, ranked results, leaderboard places and game scores can be seen by anyone, on the leaderboards and at your profile address (presspace.org/u/your-username). Your email address is never shown. Your sign-in photo is not shown unless you choose to show it instead of your character.
Your privacy choices
Under Privacy in your account menu you can:
- Make your profile private. Other people then see only your username, display name, character, title and level.
- Stay off the public leaderboards. Your runs are still scored and you can still see your own place, but nobody else sees them on any board.
- Hide single sections from other people: your country, bio, keyboard, stats, practice calendar, recent runs, achievements, medals and points, and your scores on other boards.
These choices are enforced by our database, not only hidden on the page. You can change them at any time, and you can delete your account (and everything that belongs to it) from your profile settings.
Why we use it
We use account data only to run the leaderboards, profiles and sync, to keep the leaderboards fair (including reviewing runs that look automated), and to answer you if you contact us. Our legal basis is the contract you enter by creating an account. We do not use it for advertising, and we do not sell or share it with anyone else.
Google Analytics 4
We use Google Analytics 4, a service from Google, to understand in aggregate how the site is used: how many people visit, which pages and modes they open, roughly where they are, and what device and browser they use. This helps us decide what to fix and build.
Google Analytics collects information such as the pages you view, how long you stay, the page that referred you, your device type, operating system, browser and screen size, your approximate location (country or city level), and events such as starting a test. It uses first-party cookies (named _ga and _ga_ followed by an ID) to tell one visit from another.
IP addresses: Google Analytics 4 uses your IP address to estimate your general location and then discards it. Google states that GA4 does not log or store IP addresses. Our reports never show us your IP address, and we cannot use Analytics to identify you.
You can learn how Google uses this information at How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services. You can also block Google Analytics on every site with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. Blocking it does not affect the typing test at all.
Advertising with Google AdSense
Presspace is free because it shows ads, served by Google AdSense. To show ads, measure them and prevent fraud, Google and its partners may set and read cookies, use similar technologies such as web beacons (tiny images or scripts that record when an ad or page is viewed), and process your IP address, device information, approximate location and how you interact with ads.
Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this website or other websites.
Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
Other ad vendors and networks may also serve ads on Presspace through Google's systems. Each of them may use cookies under their own policies.
How to opt out of personalised advertising
- Turn off personalised ads from Google in Ads Settings.
- Opt out of personalised advertising from many third-party vendors at www.aboutads.info/choices.
- If you are in Europe, you can also use youronlinechoices.eu.
Opting out of personalisation does not remove ads. You will still see ads, but they will be based on things like the page you are reading and your general location instead of your browsing history.
Consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland
If you visit from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we ask for your consent before any advertising or analytics cookies are used. The request is shown with Google's own consent message, a Google-certified consent management platform that works with the IAB Europe Transparency and Consent Framework.
Until you choose, Google Consent Mode is set to denied for ad storage, ad user data, ad personalisation and analytics storage in those regions. If you decline, Google may still show non-personalised ads and may receive limited, cookieless signals as described in Google's documentation on Consent Mode, but no advertising or analytics cookies are set for you.
You can change or withdraw your choice at any time with the Privacy choices link in the footer of every page. Withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it, and it does not affect the typing test.
Our legal bases under the GDPR and UK GDPR are your consent for analytics and advertising cookies, and our legitimate interest in running a secure, working website for the hosting logs described below.
Other services the site uses
| Service | What it does | What it can see |
|---|---|---|
| Google Fonts | Serves the typefaces the site uses | Your IP address and browser details when the font files are requested, as with any web request |
| Supabase | Runs optional accounts and the leaderboard database | For signed-in visitors, the account data described above, plus standard request logs (IP address, browser, time). Visitors who only read the leaderboards send it ordinary page requests. |
| Google sign-in | Lets you sign in with your Google account, if you choose to | That you signed in to Presspace, under the Google Privacy Policy |
| Netlify | Hosts the site and delivers it through a global network | Standard server logs: IP address, browser, the pages requested and the time |
| Your browser's speech engine | Reads passages aloud in Dictation | Dictation uses the speech synthesis built into your browser. We send it nothing. Depending on your browser and the voice you pick, the browser itself may use an online voice service from its maker. |
Netlify keeps its logs to operate and secure the hosting, under the Netlify Privacy Policy. Google Fonts is covered by the Google Privacy Policy.
If you email us
The contact form opens your own email app; the page does not capture or send anything. If you write to us, we receive your email address and whatever you wrote. We use it only to reply and to fix what you reported, we do not add you to any mailing list, and we delete messages once they are no longer needed.
Children
Presspace is a general-audience site. It is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. The typing test itself needs no personal information at all. You must be at least 13 to create an account (or older, where the law in your country requires it). If you believe a child has sent us personal information by email, write to us and we will delete it.
Your rights and controls
Depending on where you live, laws such as the GDPR, the UK GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act give you rights to access, correct, delete or move your personal information, to object to or restrict its use, and to withdraw consent. We do not sell personal information.
If you have not signed in, we hold nothing about you to look up: the data the site keeps is on your device, and you control it directly. If you have an account, you can see and change your profile under Edit profile, and delete the account and everything in it from the same place, or by writing to us. Deleting an account removes the profile, ranked runs, scores and synced copy for good; what is in your browser stays there.
- See and download it: open the Stats panel and use Export JSON to save a copy of everything. Import loads it into another browser.
- Delete it: use Clear everything in the Stats panel, or clear this site's data in your browser settings. Either way it is gone for good.
- Cookies: block or delete cookies in your browser settings, use the Privacy choices link if you are in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, and use the opt-out links above.
For anything held by Google, such as analytics or advertising data, you can use the tools in your Google account or contact Google directly. If you want to exercise a right with us, for example over an email you sent, write to presspaceorg@gmail.com. You also have the right to complain to your local data protection authority.
How long data is kept
- Browser storage: until you clear it. Run history keeps your most recent 250 tests, and older runs drop off automatically.
- Accounts: until you delete your account. The words handed out for an unfinished run are discarded within a day.
- Google Analytics: event data is kept for the retention period set in our Analytics settings, at most 14 months, after which Google deletes it. Aggregated reports may be kept longer.
- Advertising data: kept by Google under its own policies.
- Hosting logs: kept by Netlify for a limited period under its own policy.
- Emails: kept only as long as needed to deal with your message.
International transfers
Google and Netlify may process data in countries other than your own, including the United States. They rely on safeguards such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and, where it applies, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. If you do not sign in, your typing data does not travel at all. Account data is stored by Supabase in the United Kingdom.
Changes to this policy
If we change how the site handles data, we will update this page and the date at the top, and explain significant changes here before they take effect. Optional accounts and leaderboards were added on 11 October 2026.
Contact
Questions about privacy: presspaceorg@gmail.com, or use the contact page.