Privacy Policy

Last updated October 1, 2026

hwtierlist (https://hwtierlist.com) ranks PC hardware and hosts discussion about it. It is run by an individual, not a company. This page explains what we store about you and why. The short version: we keep as little as the site needs to work, we never sell it, and there are no ads, analytics or tracking.

If you only read the site

We don't store anything about you. We set no cookies. The companies that host the site keep standard server logs (your IP address, browser type, the pages requested and when) to run and protect their services; see “Who else handles your data” below. We don't use those logs to identify or profile anyone.

If you create an account

• Username and password. We store your username and a one-way scrambled (scrypt) version of your password, never the password itself. We don't ask for an email address, which also means we can't reset a forgotten password.
• Google or Discord sign-in. We keep only the account ID that Google or Discord gives us, so we can recognise you next time. We don't keep your name, email address or photo, even though those services offer them. Google or Discord will know that you signed in to hwtierlist; their own privacy policies apply to that.
• What you post. The topics and replies you write, the posts you like, the products you mark as owned, and the posts you report.
• Notifications telling you someone replied to you.
• Your sign-in token is kept in your browser's local storage (not a cookie) and removed when you sign out.
• Sign-in cookies. If you sign in with Google or Discord, our sign-in service sets a few security cookies that let it finish the sign-in safely. They last at most 15 minutes, are removed once you're signed in, and are never used for anything else.

What is public

Your username, when you joined, the products you mark as owned, and your topics and replies are visible to everyone, including on your profile page and in share previews of pages you posted on. Like counts are public; who liked a post is not. Reports are never shown to anyone.

How we use it

• To run your account and show your posts.
• To keep the discussion safe: every post is checked automatically against word lists for swearing, abuse, spam and personal details, and accounts are rate-limited. There is no AI involved and no person reads your posts before they appear.
• To tell you about replies, inside the site only. We never email you.

Where the law asks for a legal basis (for example the GDPR or Turkey's KVKK): running your account is necessary to provide the service you asked for, and moderation and security are our legitimate interest in keeping the site usable and safe.

How long we keep it

• Your account and posts: until you delete them.
• Posts that fail the automatic checks, or that several people report, are hidden at once and deleted 14 days later unless a moderator approves them.
• Notifications you have read: deleted after 60 days.
• Posts that contain personal details such as phone or card numbers are refused and never stored.

Deleting your account

Open your profile (your name, top right) and choose Delete account. This immediately deletes your username, password, sign-in records, likes, ownership marks, notifications, and every post you wrote. If other people replied to a topic you started, the topic stays so their replies survive, but its title and your opening post are replaced with “deleted”. If you can't sign in, write to hello@hwtierlist.com and we'll do it for you.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it, by writing to hello@hwtierlist.com. We answer within 30 days. If you think we've handled your data wrongly, you can also complain to your local data protection authority.

Who else handles your data

We share nothing with anyone except the services that run the site, and only what they need to run it:

• Cloudflare hosts the website.
• Convex hosts the database and sign-in, also behind Cloudflare.
• Google and Discord, only if you choose to sign in with them.

These services may process data in the United States and other countries. Share buttons are plain links: nothing from X, Reddit, Facebook or the others loads until you click one, and then that site's own policy applies.

Children

You must be at least 13 to create an account. If you are under the age where your country requires a parent's consent for online services, ask a parent first.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. Significant changes will be announced on the site before they take effect.

Contact

hello@hwtierlist.com See also the Terms of Service.