Abstrct — Privacy Policy
Last updated: 8 May 2026
Abstrct is a free Android app for reading research papers from open sources like arXiv.
Short version
Abstrct has no user accounts and runs no advertising. The app does send anonymous usage events — which screens you visit, which papers you open — so we can understand what people use and surface trending papers (see “Anonymous usage analytics” below). Release builds also send automatic crash reports to Sentry (see below). Your bookmarks, read history, and saved filters live in local device storage and never leave it. There is no in-app opt-out for analytics or crash reports in v1 — build the app yourself in debug mode if you don't want this data sent.
What's collected
- By the app itself, in normal operation: anonymous usage events — see “Anonymous usage analytics” below for the exact list and where they go. No user-typed text and no PII is ever included.
- By the Abstrct backend: when the app fetches papers from our API, the request reaches our server with the standard information any HTTP request carries — IP address, user-agent, and URL path. These are kept in server logs for up to 30 days for debugging and abuse prevention, then deleted.
- By third parties: Send Feedback opens abstrct.fider.io, operated by Fider and covered by Fider's privacy policy. The AI Explain feature hands a prompt to whichever LLM app you choose — whatever that app collects is between you and that app. Release builds also send automatic crash reports to Sentry — see Crash reports below.
Crash reports
Release builds of Abstrct send automatic crash reports to Sentry (sentry.io). When the app crashes or hits an unrecoverable error, Sentry receives: the stack trace, your device model, Android version, app version, and a short trail of recent screens you visited and HTTP request status codes.
Sentry does not receive request bodies, headers, query strings, the contents of papers you read, your bookmarks, or your saved filters. Screenshots and view hierarchies are explicitly disabled, and your IP address is not attached to events.
Crash reporting is a condition of using release builds — there is no in-app opt-out. If you do not want this data sent, build the app yourself in debug mode (see the project README); debug builds never initialise Sentry.
Anonymous usage analytics
Abstrct sends anonymous events about how the app is used so we can understand what people actually use, find bugs, and surface trending papers. There are no user accounts and we never collect your identity — every event is keyed only by an anonymous, randomly-generated install id (a UUID stored on your device). Reinstalling the app generates a new id.
What we collect: app launches, which screens you view, when you search or apply filters, which papers you open, when you bookmark or unbookmark a paper, when you tap “Explain” to hand a paper to an LLM. Properties carry stable identifiers like the paper id and coarse counters like “how long was your search” — never the search query itself or any free-text input.
Where it goes: events are sent to PostHog Cloud (EU), a third-party product-analytics processor whose data is hosted in Frankfurt. A small subset — paper opens and bookmark add/remove, keyed by the install id — is also sent to our own backend so we can show “X readers this week” and a “Trending” sort on papers.
There is no in-app opt-out in v1. To use the app without analytics, build the debug variant locally (see the project README); debug builds send no events to either destination.
What we don't do
No ads. No social trackers. No selling or sharing of your data — ever. The analytics events described above are aggregate-only and never sold or shared beyond PostHog (which acts as our processor) and our own backend. Crash reports go to Sentry only, with the scope described above.
Permissions
The app requests internet access only, to fetch papers and load PDFs/HTML in the embedded reader. No location, contacts, camera, or storage permissions.
Children
Abstrct is not directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect any data from children.
Changes
Updates ship with the app and the date above reflects the latest revision.
Contact
l.alessandrorizzo@gmail.com or file a topic at abstrct.fider.io.