Privacy
What CredCite keeps, what it sends elsewhere, and how to remove it. In plain words.
Accounts are switched off on this site for now, so the parts of this page about accounts don’t currently apply: everyone uses CredCite as a guest, and saved topics may be cleared at any time.
What CredCite stores
- If you use it without an account: the topics you search, their results, and any citations you save, for up to 7 days after you last used them. They are tied to a cookie in your browser, not to your name.
- If you create an account: your name, your email address, and your topics and citations, until you delete them. Your password is stored only as a scrambled hash, so nobody, including the site owner, can read it.
- If you sign in with Google or Apple: the name and email address they pass on, and an ID that lets CredCite recognize you next time. CredCite never sees your Google or Apple password.
- If you sign in with Google: an ID number that Google gives CredCite so it can recognize you next time, and your topics and citations, until you delete them. That is all. CredCite does not ask Google for your name, email address, photo or anything else in your Google account, and it never sees your Google password.
Where it is kept
Accounts, topics and citations are kept in a database run by Upstash, a database company, on CredCite’s behalf. It is reached over an encrypted connection, and only CredCite’s server has the key to it.
Accounts, topics and citations are kept in files on the server that runs CredCite.
This site currently has no long-term storage. Topics are kept on the server for a short time and may be cleared at any moment, so download or copy your citations to keep them.
Cookies
CredCite sets only the cookies it needs to work: one that keeps you logged in (30 days), or one that remembers your work as a guest (7 days), and a short-lived one during Google or Apple sign-in. Your search settings are remembered in your browser. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.
Advertising
CredCite shows a small number of clearly labelled ads from Google AdSense to pay for its hosting: at most two on a results page, and none while you are building citations.
CredCite asks Google to treat this site as one that children may use and to show only non-personalized ads. That means the ads you see are not chosen from your past browsing or from a profile of you.
To deliver ads, limit how often one is shown, and detect fraud, Google’s ad service may still use cookies or similar technology in your browser. How Google uses information from sites that use its services.
What is sent to other services
- The topic you search is sent to a web search provider (DuckDuckGo, Brave Search or Tavily) and to the scholarly indexes OpenAlex and Crossref, to find sources. Nothing that identifies you is sent with it.
- CredCite’s server downloads the pages it finds in order to read them. Those sites see CredCite’s server, not you, unless you click through to a source yourself.
- If you choose Google or Apple sign-in, that company learns that you signed in to CredCite.
CredCite does not sell your information, and does not pass your name, email, searches or citations to advertisers.
Companies that help run CredCite
CredCite is a small independent project and relies on a few services. Each sees only what it needs to do its job:
- Render runs the website’s server. Like any web host, it handles the requests your browser makes, including your IP address.
- Upstash stores accounts, topics and citations, as described above.
- The web search provider, OpenAlex and Crossref receive the topics that are searched, without your name or account.
- Google or Apple, only if you choose to sign in with them.
- Google AdSense shows the ads, as described under Advertising.
- Cloudflare provides the credcite.org address (its domain name service). It does not see what you do on the site.
Children and younger students
CredCite is made for students, and everything in it works without an account. As a guest, CredCite keeps no name and no email address, only the topics you searched, for up to 7 days. CredCite does not ask for anyone’s age or birthday.
An account stores a name and an email address. Younger students should check with a parent or teacher before creating one, or simply use CredCite as a guest.
If you are a parent, guardian or teacher and want a student’s account and its contents removed, write to and it will be deleted.
Removing your information
You can delete any topic from the “Your topics” list; its citations go with it. Guest work is removed automatically after 7 days without use. Deleting your account removes your name, email, topics and citations from CredCite straight away.