WidgetVibes - Game Widgets Privacy Policy

1. Overview

Game Widgets is an Android home-screen app built around a gallery of thirty-five tiny games — tic-tac-toe, minesweeper, 2048, chess, sudoku, word search, memory match and the rest. Each game is playable inside the app and can be placed on your launcher as a real, playable home-screen widget in 2×2, 4×2 or 4×4 size, customised for board, marks, colour, frame, sound and feel, and played on your own, against the phone, or against a second player on the same device. The app speaks nineteen languages.

Game Widgets keeps your content on your device. WidgetVibes does not create user accounts for Game Widgets, does not require your name or email address to use the app, and does not upload your game boards, customisations, player names, scores, sounds or widget configurations. There is no WidgetVibes server, no login, and no synchronisation of anything you make.

The app does report on itself. Since version 1.0.8 it uses Firebase Crashlytics to report crashes and errors and Firebase Analytics to count a short, fixed list of product events, so we can tell what is broken on phones we will never see and which features are actually used. Nothing you type or play is part of that: the search box reports how many games matched and never the words, player names never leave the phone, and no board, move or score is ever sent. This is set out in full in Section 10.

The other connected services are Google Play Billing for the optional one-time Pro purchase, Google AdMob for the single rewarded ad behind WATCH AD, Google User Messaging Platform for the ad consent form, Google Play In-App Updates for the version check, and standard Google Play distribution. All of them are described below.

2. Information Handled by the App

A. Local App, Game and Widget Preferences

Game Widgets saves your app settings and every widget's configuration on your device: the language, the theme (light, dark or system), the sound and haptics switches and volume, widget sizing and margins, and each game's look — palette, frame, fonts, padding, grid lines, opacity, move hints, difficulty, who starts, and the single-player or two-player mode. For each widget on your home screen the app also keeps a record of the game it plays, its size, its customisation and the board in progress, so a widget saved mid-turn is still mid-turn after a reboot. All of this lives in app-private local storage on your device. The settings themselves are not uploaded; that a setting was changed may be counted as an event, as described in Section 10.

B. Player Names You Type

Two-player mode lets you type a name for each player on the settings screen, up to sixteen characters. Names are stored locally with the app's state, and a copy is taken into a widget's own configuration when that widget is created, so a widget on the home screen keeps the names it was made with. Names are drawn on your screen and on your widgets only. They are never uploaded to WidgetVibes, never sent to any third party, and never included in an analytics event or a crash report. Because a name is drawn on your home screen where other people may see it, please use whatever nickname you are comfortable showing there.

C. Game Records and Scores

The app keeps a tally per game — rounds played, won, lost, drawn, and the best single result — with a separate record for games played against the phone and games played between two people, so a widget's scorecard and the app agree. These are plain counters stored on your device. There is no leaderboard and no account, nothing is uploaded, and no board, move or score is ever reported: a game is played on the home screen, out of reach of the part of the app that reports anything at all.

D. Audio Files You Choose to Add

The advanced sound system lets you give any widget action a sound of your own. When you pick one, the app opens Android's own document picker and receives only the single file you select — it does not browse, scan or index your music, media library or storage, and it asks for no storage permission. The file you pick is re-written before it is kept: decoded, mixed down to one channel, trimmed, levelled, cut to the length that action can carry, and saved as a small WAV inside the app's own private storage under an id such as u_7. The original file is left where it was, and the app keeps no further access to it once the picker closes. Neither the audio nor its file name is ever uploaded; an import is counted only as "a sound was imported for this action, and this many are now kept".

E. Pictures You Choose to Share

The app can draw a picture of a widget as it looks right now and hand it to Android's share sheet. The picture is rendered entirely on your device and written into the app's private cache under a single file name; the app you choose in the share sheet is then granted read access to that one file. What happens to the picture afterwards is handled by the app or service you shared it with, under its own privacy policy. Nothing is sent to WidgetVibes, and no picture leaves your device unless you pick a destination yourself.

F. Clipboard (Keyboard Widget Only)

The keyboard widget's COPY key puts the line you typed on that widget onto your phone's clipboard. The app only ever writes to the clipboard, only when you press that key, and only that line. Game Widgets never reads your clipboard, the text you type on a keyboard widget is never reported anywhere, and the self-playing demo shown in the gallery never copies anything.

G. Device Theme Colours

When you open the styles screen, the app can offer colour presets built from the Material You palette that Android derives from your wallpaper. It reads the system colour values Android exposes to any app, and reads them only while that screen is open. It does not read, copy or upload your wallpaper image itself.

H. Purchase State for the Pro Unlock

Game Widgets offers an optional one-time, non-consumable Pro unlock purchased through Google Play Billing. The app asks Google Play whether this account owns the unlock and stores the resulting unlock state locally, so the widgets Pro covers keep working. Payment is processed entirely by Google Play. WidgetVibes does not receive or store your name, credit card number, billing address, or other payment method details. Whether this copy has Pro is recorded as an analytics property, as a plain yes or no.

I. Advertising Data (Google AdMob)

Instead of Pro, you can press WATCH AD to watch one rewarded video, which grants a 48-hour pass on the widgets that need a licence. This is the only ad in the app, and it is shown only when you press that button. No ad is requested at all until the Google consent flow described in Section 3 has been through. When an ad is requested, Google may collect or receive information such as your IP address, device identifiers, advertising ID, device and app information, ad interactions, diagnostics, crash or performance data related to ad delivery, and approximate location inferred from network information. This data is processed by Google to deliver, measure, personalise (where consented), and protect ads, under Google's Privacy Policy and How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services. WidgetVibes does not receive this data. The only thing the app itself learns from an ad is whether it was watched to the end, and the only thing it stores is the window the resulting pass runs for.

J. Crash Reports and Product Events (Firebase)

Release builds of Game Widgets send crash and error reports to Firebase Crashlytics and a short, fixed list of product events to Firebase Analytics. Crash reports carry technical data and a little app context — which screen was open, which game was up, whether Pro is on, how many widgets you have, and the app's language. Events record things like a widget being added, Pro being bought, or an ad being watched to the end. No content you create or type is included. Section 10 lists exactly what is sent, what never is, and where reporting is switched off entirely.

K. Android Backup and Device Transfer

Android backup is enabled for Game Widgets so that your widgets survive a move to a new phone. What is included is your widget records (game, size, customisation and board), the app's own state and settings, and the sounds you added; the app's cache of rendered widget pictures is deliberately excluded. Backup and device transfer are performed by Android and, for a cloud backup, by Google under the Google Privacy Policy; WidgetVibes has no access to your backups. You can turn backup off at any time in your Android settings.

L. Support Emails and Bug Reports

The REPORT A BUG row opens your own email app with a message addressed to WidgetVibes Support and a short form in the body asking for your Android version, launcher, device name and a description of the issue. Nothing is filled in for you and nothing is sent until you press send in your own email app. Whatever you choose to include — including any screenshots you attach — reaches our support mailbox and is used only to answer you.

M. What the App Does Not Collect

Game Widgets does not collect or transmit precise or coarse location, contacts, calendar data, photos, your media library, the list of apps installed on your device, camera or microphone data, SMS messages, call logs, health data, or browsing history. It does not read your clipboard. It does not send your player names, your game boards, your scores, the words you search for, the text you type on a keyboard widget, the pictures you share, or the audio files or file names of sounds you added. Outside of advertising handled by Google and the reporting described in Section 10, the app performs no tracking, and there is no WidgetVibes account system.

3. Purchases, Ads and Connected Services

Google Play Billing. Game Widgets offers a single optional, one-time (non-consumable) Pro purchase through Google Play Billing. Google Play handles payment processing, purchase confirmation, purchase history, refunds, and purchase restoration on new devices. When the app checks, completes or restores the purchase, Google Play may process information such as your Google account eligibility, product identifiers, purchase tokens, and purchase status. This processing is governed by the Google Privacy Policy. Pro is bought once and is not a subscription.

Google AdMob. Game Widgets uses the Google Mobile Ads SDK for one ad format only: a rewarded video behind the WATCH AD button. There are no banner ads, no interstitials, no app-open ads and no native ads anywhere in the app or on your home screen. Google may collect or receive information such as IP address, device identifiers, advertising identifiers, app and ad interactions, diagnostics, crash or performance data, and approximate location inferred from network data to deliver, measure, and protect ads. You can learn more in the Google Privacy Policy, Google's Advertising technologies overview, and the Google Mobile Ads SDK data disclosure. Builds under development request Google's demo ad unit rather than the live one, so testing generates no real ad traffic.

Google User Messaging Platform (ad consent). Game Widgets uses Google's User Messaging Platform, which is the consent half of AdMob and the form Google accepts for the GDPR and the US state privacy laws. The app may not request an ad until that flow has been through: where your region or consent state requires a form, it is shown and answered before any ad is asked for, and where no law requires one there is none. If you decline personalised ads, ads that are still permitted are simply requested without personalisation. Wherever consent was required in the first place, an AD PRIVACY row appears on the app's settings screen that reopens Google's form, so you can change your answer at any time. You can also manage ad personalisation in your Google Ads Settings and through your device's Android advertising settings.

Google Play In-App Updates. The CHECK FOR UPDATES action asks the Play Store whether a newer version of Game Widgets exists and, if you accept, downloads it in the background while you carry on playing. The request and the download are handled by Google Play; a copy of the app that was not installed by the Play Store is simply told so. The RATE IT card opens the app's own Play Store listing in the Play app or your browser, and leaving a rating is entirely between you and Google Play.

Firebase. Crash reporting and product analytics are covered separately in Section 10.

Links that leave the app. The Play Store listing, this privacy policy page, the share sheet and the support email link each hand you over to another app or website, which then handles any information under its own privacy policy. Game Widgets does not attach any of your app data to these links.

Beyond the services above, Game Widgets makes no network requests of its own: there is no backend server, no content downloads, and no data synchronisation. Every one of the thirty-five games is played entirely on your phone, online or off.

4. Third-Party Services

Service	Purpose	Information Involved	Policy
Firebase Crashlytics	Crash, ANR and caught-error reporting, including faults in the engine that draws your widgets	Stack traces, app version, package name, device model, OS version, memory and storage state, timestamps, Firebase and Crashlytics installation identifiers, and app context keys: current screen, current game, Pro on or off, number of widgets, app language	Firebase Privacy and Security Firebase Crashlytics Google Privacy Policy
Firebase Analytics	Counting a short, fixed list of product events so we know which features are used	App-owned event names and parameters (see Section 10), user properties (Pro yes/no, a bucketed widget count, language, theme, two-player on/off), app instance identifier, device model, OS and app version, and an approximate country or region derived from IP	Firebase Privacy and Security Google Analytics for Firebase Google Privacy Policy
Google Play Billing	Optional one-time Pro unlock purchase, purchase confirmation, and purchase restoration	Product identifier, purchase status, purchase tokens or receipts, and payment processing handled by Google Play	Google Privacy Policy Google Play Terms of Service
Google AdMob (Google Mobile Ads)	The single rewarded ad behind WATCH AD, ad measurement, and fraud prevention	Ad identifiers, advertising ID, IP address, device and app information, ad interactions, diagnostics, and approximate location inferred from network data	Google Privacy Policy How Google Uses Information Google Advertising Technologies Google Mobile Ads SDK Data Disclosure AdMob and Privacy
Google User Messaging Platform	The ad consent form, and the AD PRIVACY row that reopens it	Consent status and consent strings, privacy options requirement status, device or app information needed to show the form, and standard request metadata	Google Privacy Policy Google Technologies and Cookies
Google Play In-App Updates	Checking whether a newer app version exists and downloading it in the background	App package name, installed version, install source, and update or download status handled by Google Play	Google Privacy Policy Google Play Terms of Service
Google Play (app distribution)	App installation, updates, store listing, and ratings	Standard Google Play install, update and rating information handled by Google Play	Google Privacy Policy Google Play Terms of Service
Android Backup and Device Transfer (Google)	Carrying your widgets, settings and added sounds onto a new phone	Widget records, app settings and the small WAV files you added, stored in your own Android backup; the rendered frame cache is excluded	Google Privacy Policy Back Up or Restore Data on Android
External destinations (share sheet, Play Store page, email app)	Sharing a picture of a widget, opening the store listing, and contacting support, each only when you choose it	Handled by the destination app or website under its own policy; only the one picture you share, or the message you write, is handed over	Google Privacy Policy

Apart from the Google and Firebase libraries named here, Game Widgets bundles no third-party SDKs at all. There is no advertising network other than AdMob, no attribution or install-tracking SDK, no social login, and no data broker of any kind.

5. Permissions and Device Access

Access	Why It Is Used	User Control
Internet and network state	The rewarded ad behind WATCH AD, the ad consent form, Google Play Billing purchase checks, the Play Store update check, and sending crash reports and product events to Firebase	Required only for those features; all thirty-five games, in the app and on the home screen, are played offline
Vibration	The small tick a widget or button gives when HAPTICS is on	Turned off in the app's Settings, globally or per widget; involves no personal data
Billing	Supports the optional one-time Pro unlock, purchase checks, and purchase restoration through Google Play	Only used when you view, make, or restore the Pro purchase
Audio file picker (no storage permission)	Lets you give a widget action a sound of your own; Android's document picker hands the app the one file you select	Entirely optional; the app never browses your storage or media library, and a sound you added can be removed in the app
Clipboard (write only)	The keyboard widget's COPY key places the line you typed on that widget onto the clipboard	Only on that key press; the app never reads the clipboard
Share sheet	Hands a picture of your widget to the app you pick, through Android's own share sheet	Only when you press share and choose a destination yourself
Home-screen widgets	Draws and updates your widgets and receives the taps you make on them; widgets are placed, moved, resized and removed by your launcher	Add or remove widgets at any time from the launcher; removing one deletes its stored record
Background refresh	One inexact, non-waking alarm after midnight so the daily puzzle games move on; no exact-alarm permission is requested and your phone is never woken for it	Set only while a daily game is on your home screen; involves no personal data
Android backup	Carries your widget records, settings and added sounds onto a new phone	Can be turned off in your Android backup settings

Game Widgets does not request access to location, camera, microphone, contacts, calendar, photos, your media library, SMS messages, call logs, health data, or the list of apps installed on your device.

6. How Information Is Used

To save your game customisations, widget configurations, language, theme, sound, haptics and sizing preferences on your device.
To draw and update the game widgets on your home screen, and to play the move when you tap one.
To keep each widget's board in progress so a game survives a reboot or the app being closed.
To show the player names you typed and keep the score tally for each game and each mode.
To play the sounds a widget is set to, including any audio file you chose to add.
To render a picture of a widget when you ask to share one, and to copy a typed line when you press COPY on the keyboard widget.
To check, complete, or restore the optional one-time Pro unlock through Google Play.
To show the single rewarded ad behind WATCH AD and to keep the 48-hour pass it grants.
To collect and honour your ad consent through Google User Messaging Platform before any ad is requested.
To diagnose crashes, freezes and caught errors — including faults in widgets that would otherwise look perfectly normal on your home screen — through Firebase Crashlytics.
To understand which features are used, whether widgets are successfully added, and whether the purchase and ad flows work, through the short list of Firebase Analytics events in Section 10.
To check for and download a newer version of the app through Google Play.
To respond to support emails and bug reports that you choose to send.

WidgetVibes does not use your information for profiling, does not build advertising audiences from it, does not sell personal information, and does not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

8. Data Retention and Deletion

Widget records, boards in progress, customisations, player names and score tallies remain on your device until you change them, delete the related widget, clear the app's data, or uninstall the app. Removing a home-screen widget removes its stored record.
Sounds you added are kept as small WAV files in the app's own storage until you remove them in the app or clear the app's data; removing one puts every widget that played it back on a sound the app ships with.
A picture prepared for sharing is written to the app's private cache under a single file name and is replaced by the next share; clearing the app's cache removes it.
The cache of rendered widget pictures is housekeeping only, is replaced on every redraw, and is excluded from Android backups.
Firebase Crashlytics data is retained according to Firebase's privacy practices; Firebase currently states that Crashlytics keeps crash traces and associated identifiers for 90 days before starting removal from live and backup systems.
Firebase Analytics event data is retained according to the retention period set on our Google Analytics property and Google's data retention practices. Aggregated, non-identifying reports may be kept for longer.
Android backups of your widget records, settings and added sounds are retained by Android and Google and can be disabled or deleted through your Android and Google account settings.
Purchase records for the Pro unlock are retained by Google Play according to Google's own retention practices; the app itself keeps only a local unlock flag, which is removed when app data is cleared or the app is uninstalled.
The 48-hour ad pass is stored locally as the window it runs for and simply expires; it is removed with the app's data.
Advertising and ad-consent data processed by Google AdMob and Google User Messaging Platform is retained according to Google's practices. WidgetVibes does not hold this data.
Support emails and bug reports remain in our support mailbox as needed to respond and keep a reasonable record of support history.

9. Your Choices

You can play every game entirely offline; the only features that need a network are the ad, ad consent, purchases, the update check and reporting.
You can answer Google's ad consent form as you wish, and where it was required you can reopen it at any time with the AD PRIVACY row on the app's settings screen.
You can manage ad personalisation through your Google Ads Settings, your device's Android advertising settings (including resetting or deleting your advertising ID), and Google's My Ad Center.
You can reset the identifier that analytics and crash reports are attached to by clearing the app's data or reinstalling the app, and remove it by uninstalling.
WidgetVibes runs no accounts and no server of its own, so there is no remote profile of yours held by us to delete. Crash and analytics data sits with Firebase, and advertising data with Google, each under their own retention practices and reachable through their own privacy tools.
You can leave the player name fields on their defaults, or change or clear them at any time in the app's Settings.
You can choose never to add a sound of your own, and you can remove any sound you did add from the advanced sound system.
You can turn sound and haptics off in the app's Settings, globally or per widget, and change the app's language at any time.
You can delete individual widgets from your launcher, clear the app's cache or data, or uninstall the app to remove all local content from your device.
You can choose Pro instead of ads, or neither: the free 2×2 widgets need no purchase and no ad at all.
You can manage, restore, or request refunds for the Pro purchase through Google Play.
You can turn Android backup off in your device settings if you would rather your widgets did not travel to a new phone.
You can contact WidgetVibes Support if you want help with analytics, crash report, purchase, or support-email data requests. Analytics, crash, purchase, advertising, consent and backup data controlled by Google, Firebase or Google Play may require action through those providers' privacy tools or support channels.

10. Crash Reporting and Analytics (Firebase)

From version 1.0.8, Game Widgets reports on itself through Firebase Crashlytics and Firebase Analytics. This section is the complete account of it: what is sent, what never is, and where nothing is sent at all.

A. Crash and Error Reports (Firebase Crashlytics)

Crashlytics receives three kinds of fault: a crash or freeze that ended the app, an error the app caught and carried on from, and an error inside the separate engine that draws your home-screen widgets. That last one matters most here — a widget that has failed does not close or show anything, it sits on your home screen looking exactly as it did and stops answering taps, so without a report nobody would ever know.

A report may include stack traces, the app version and package name, your device model, the Android version, memory and storage state, timestamps, and the Firebase and Crashlytics installation identifiers. Alongside it we attach a little app context so a report can be read at all: the screen that was open, the game that was up, whether Pro is on, how many widgets you have, and the app's language.

B. Product Events (Firebase Analytics)

The event list is short and fixed. Nothing counts taps, moves or games played. In full, the app reports: a widget added, blocked by the paywall, removed, unlocked with an ad pass, or repaired after losing its record; a game opened from the gallery or customised; a style saved or applied; the search box used (the number of matches only); the Pro screen opened, Pro turned on or off, a purchase that failed, or a locked feature pushed on; a rewarded ad finished, skipped, unavailable or failed; the language, theme, two-player switch, a setting, or a widget sound changed; a sound imported (which action it was for, and how many you now keep); the rating card shown and answered; and an update offered, started or installed.

Each event carries a few plain parameters — a game's short id, a widget size, an outcome such as "earned" or "skipped", a count. Alongside them, Firebase keeps five properties about this installation: whether Pro is on, roughly how many widgets you have (as a bucket such as "2-3" or "7+"), the app's language, the theme, and whether two-player mode is on. Firebase Analytics also collects its own standard data, including an app instance identifier, device model, operating system and app version, and an approximate country or region derived from your IP address.

C. What Is Never Sent

No content you create or type reaches Firebase. That means: your player names; the contents of any game board, move or score; the words you type into the search box (only how many games matched); the text typed on a keyboard widget or placed on your clipboard; the audio you import or its file name (only which action it was for, and how many sounds you keep); the pictures you share; and your precise location, contacts, calendar, photos or media library. Event and property values are limited in code to app-owned names, fixed choices and numbers, and anything that does not fit that shape is refused before it is sent.

D. Where Nothing Is Reported

Reporting is part of the released Android app and nothing else. Debug and profile builds have both Crashlytics and Analytics collection switched off in the manifest, so development and testing send nothing. Any non-Android build, and every automated test, runs against a reporting layer that does nothing at all and has no Firebase project behind it. If Firebase cannot start on a device — no Play Services, for instance — the app carries on normally and reports nothing.

E. Consent, and What It Does and Does Not Cover

The consent form described in Section 3 is Google's ad consent form. It governs advertising and ad personalisation, and no ad is requested before it has been answered where one is required. It is not an analytics switch: crash reporting and the product events above are part of the released app and are collected by default, and Firebase writes an app instance identifier when it first starts. We are telling you plainly rather than implying a control that is not there. What you can do today is listed in Section 9: clearing the app's data or reinstalling resets that identifier, and uninstalling removes it from your device. Data already held by Firebase is subject to Google's retention practices and privacy tools. If a switch for reporting is added inside the app, this page will be updated to say so.

F. Google Play Data Safety

Because of the above, the app's Google Play Data safety section declares that crash logs, diagnostics and app interaction data are collected, alongside the purchase and advertising data already handled by Google. That declaration and this policy are kept in step, and both are updated before any change to what the app collects is released.

11. Children's Privacy

Game Widgets is a general-audience app and is not directed at children under 13. The app does not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children: there is no account, no profile, no sign-in, and no content you create is sent anywhere. The one rewarded ad in the app is served by Google AdMob and is preceded by Google's consent form where one is required; ad personalisation can be managed through your Google and Android advertising settings.

If you believe a child has provided personal information through a support email or another contact method, please contact us so we can review and delete it where appropriate.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as Game Widgets changes or as legal and platform requirements change. The latest version will be posted on this page with an updated "Last Updated" date. The most recent substantive change was the addition of Firebase Crashlytics and Firebase Analytics in version 1.0.8, described in Section 10. If a future version of the app adds data collection beyond what is described here, this policy and the app's Google Play Data safety section will be updated before that change ships.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, or want to ask about the data held for your installation, contact us at:

WidgetVibes Support

support@widgetvibes.com

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Privacy Policy for Game Widgets