Plain-English privacy policy. The short version: the encoder and decoder run entirely in your browser — your inputs are never sent anywhere. We do use Google Analytics, Google AdSense, and an Adsterra banner to keep the site free, and those services set cookies and collect standard browsing data. Details, opt-outs, and the things we’ll never do are all below.
The encoder and decoder themselves run entirely in your browser. The text or URL you paste, type, encode, or decode is processed locally in JavaScript and is never sent to our servers — this is true even though we serve ads and use analytics, because those services have no access to what you type into the tool. We don’t sell your personal data. You can opt out of analytics and personalized ads with the steps below.
The following information never leaves your device, period:
You can verify this yourself: open your browser’s Network panel (F12 → Network), perform an encode or decode, and confirm there are no outbound requests carrying your input.
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages are popular, which devices and browsers visitors use, which countries they come from, and roughly how long they spend on each page. Google Analytics sets cookies (typically named _ga and _ga_*) and collects pages visited, time on page, referring website, device type, screen size, browser, operating system, an anonymized IP, and a randomly-generated client ID.
Google Analytics does not receive: the text you encode or decode, your real name, email, or any directly-identifying information.
How to opt out: install the official Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, or use uBlock Origin / Privacy Badger / Brave’s built-in shields.
We display ads through Google AdSense to keep the site free. AdSense and the Google ad network may show personalized advertising based on your prior visits to this and other websites. To do that, Google and its partners use cookies and similar technologies.
How to control or opt out of personalized ads:
We also display a banner ad served by Adsterra, an independent ad network. The Adsterra script may set its own cookies and collect standard ad-serving telemetry (impressions, clicks, viewability metrics, IP address, user-agent).
_ga, _ga_* — Google Analytics, ~2 years__gads, __gpi, NID, IDE — Google AdSense and DoubleClick, up to 2 yearsurl_theme — set by our own site to remember your dark-mode preference. First-party, no tracking purpose, never sent off-deviceIf you’re in the EU, EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you have the right to access, correct, delete, or export any personal data we hold about you, and to object to or restrict its processing. Since we don’t hold a database of users (just aggregate Google Analytics data and ad-network records held by Google and Adsterra), most requests are best directed to those providers using their own privacy interfaces. For anything else, email us and we’ll respond within 30 days.
California residents have the right to know what personal information is collected, to request its deletion, and to opt out of its “sale” or “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising. The advertising on this site may qualify as “sharing” under CCPA. You can exercise the opt-out via the Google Ads Settings link above, by enabling your browser’s Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal (which we honor), or by emailing us directly.
Privacy questions, opt-out requests, or data-access inquiries: contactus@urlencodedecode.com.
Last updated May 2026.