Privacy notice
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What we record
Nothing tied to you. Storiesaver has no sign-up, so no personal profile of you exists to hold. Pages go out as static files, and the handles you look up are not logged by us. One catch: the handle travels in the page address (/?u=name) on every search, just as in a link you share, and that address may stay in the logs of our host and CDN. Storiesaver itself drops no tracking cookie. Advertising is a different matter: an outside company runs it and places cookies of its own, as the Ads section explains. Should any of this change, this page changes first and gets a new date.
Storiesaver keeps one anonymous tally of how visitors arrive. A short while after a page opens it files the referring site (host name only), which page was reached, the country you are in and, if present in the link, a brief source label under that day’s total. It needs no cookie, identifier or IP address. If your browser sends DNT or enables GPC, nothing is filed. Nothing older than a quarter is kept. Storiesaver separates new from returning visitors with a single day number the browser keeps. Only a gap bracket, such as first visit, again today, next day or older, is filed with the tally. The number is not an identifier and goes nowhere. It is gone once site data is cleared, and nothing is kept when DNT or GPC is on.
What stays on your device
Your recent lookups sit in local storage inside your browser, and they are never transmitted. It lists only handles you looked up on that device. Empty it with the button beside it, or wipe the site’s stored data; a private window holds the list only while it stays open. There is also a service worker, which keeps two of our pages, the start page and the error page, cached for offline use; no profile or media goes into that cache, and clearing site data empties it. Downloaded files go to your device and nowhere else.
Who fetches the profiles
A lookup travels in four hops. First, as you press View, that search is screened by a bot check called Cloudflare Turnstile, run out of sight by our CDN; it reads basic browser signals and your IP address for a moment, and you only see a challenge if something looks automated. Second, your browser sends the handle to this site’s own edge, which tallies for a few minutes the requests from each visitor’s IP address, so it can enforce fair-use limits. Third, the edge hands the handle to our server, and our server asks a third-party data source for the open profile; that source asks Instagram for the account’s public side, which our server passes back for the page to lay out. The source sees the handle you typed and our server’s address, never your IP address, your browser’s headers or the name of this site. How long it keeps what it does see is the provider’s call. Fourth, photos arrive straight from the servers Instagram uses for media; your IP address reaches them, while the page you came from is not passed on. Clips, along with the frame shown before each one plays, come by way of our server, as do avatars, the miniature covers on highlights and downloads. A VPN, or a browser designed around privacy, leaves any server knowing less about you, on this site as on any other.
Ads
Storiesaver is free to use, and advertising is what keeps it that way. A separate ad company decides which ads run here and handles them under its own data policy. Ads start loading straight away; you won’t see a consent prompt first.
What can appear:
- Pop-under tabs. One click somewhere on a page is enough for an ad to open in a fresh tab or a second window, mostly hidden behind Storiesaver.
- Slide-in notices. Compact ad boxes glide onto the screen; tap the × on any of them to dismiss it.
- Interstitials. On results and on our notes, an ad can fill your whole display until you shut it.
- A notifications prompt. Once you have looked someone up, the browser might offer to let storiesaver.com notify you. Accepting means ads may reach you later, site closed or not. Revoke that site permission in browser settings whenever you like.
- Sponsored links, marked “See also” (closing a bio), “Also trending” (boxed cards and grid squares next to results and our notes), a bar hugging the lower screen edge, plus “Featured” (by recent lookups, inside the media viewer, and in each page footer). Advertisers pay for every one of them; none of them reflects the account on screen.
- One extra tab on saving. Hitting Download can launch a sponsor page alongside the file, at most one per sixty seconds; your download is not altered.
The ad company receives your IP, browser type, interface language, the screen dimensions and the fact that you are on Storiesaver. It, and the advertisers bidding through it, can save cookies or similar device tags to target ads, stop the same one showing too often, tally views and taps, and catch robotic traffic.
Before a lookup runs, the page loads a small test file from the ad servers. Should a blocker cancel it, the lookup pauses and you are asked to whitelist us. We log just one number per day for those pauses: how many happened, nothing about who.
Search box handles are never handed to the ad company by us. Bear in mind, though, that /?u=name style URLs spell the handle out in plain view, so any code loaded here, ad code too, can pick it up.
Third parties
- Host: stores and delivers the site’s pages.
- CDN (delivery network): guards the site against attacks and floods, and runs the invisible bot check that comes with each search, briefly handling your IP address and browser details as part of that.
- Data provider: pulls public profiles from Instagram when our server asks, as explained above.
- Ad company: delivers all the advertising listed earlier.
Beyond these four, nobody receives data from us, and we sell none.
What you can ask for
Ask to see what we hold on you, or to have it fixed or wiped. In practice nothing tied to your name exists here, and a written reply will confirm it. Storiesaver answers for this data itself; send any such request to contact@storiesaver.com. You are also free to go to the data protection body where you are based.