Privacy policy
The short version
- SousChef has no accounts, no sign-up and no newsletter.
- Your recipes and the media inside them stay on your device. They are stored in your browser's IndexedDB and never sent to us.
-
Cooking progress — which checkboxes you have ticked and your auto-advance preference —
is stored in your browser's
localStorageand never sent to us. - We use no analytics, no tracking pixels, and we set no cookies of our own.
- Our host, Cloudflare, processes ordinary technical request data (such as your IP address) to deliver the site and keep it secure.
1. Who we are
SousChef (the “site”, “we”, “us”) is a free browser-based recipe library and cooking companion published by RohanTorul. For anything in this policy, contact rohan@torul.org.
This policy describes what happens to information when you visit the site. It does not cover websites we link to, or recipe files you received from someone else, which have their own policies and authors.
2. Recipes, cooking progress and timers
The site is a static web page. There is no application server behind it and no database on
our side. When you upload a .recipe file, the browser reads the archive locally
and stores it in your browser's IndexedDB — under the origin of this site, in your
browser, on your device. The recipes you upload, the images and videos inside them, the
sections you edit in the Recipe Maker, the checkboxes you tick in the cooking view, the
timers you run and the auto-advance preference all stay on your device. We have no
server-side storage, no way to see what you uploaded, and no way to read or delete your
library remotely.
3. Local storage and IndexedDB
The site uses two browser-storage mechanisms, both on your own device:
| Where | Key | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| IndexedDB | souschef (database) |
Your whole recipe library: each uploaded .recipe file (a ZIP archive
containing recipe.json and a media/ folder), plus its title
and the time it was added. This includes every image, GIF and video inside those
files.
|
| localStorage | souschef-progress-<recipeId> |
Per-recipe cooking progress: which utensils, ingredients, setup items, steps and yield lines you have ticked. One entry per recipe you have started cooking. |
| localStorage | souschef-auto-check |
Your preference for the “Auto-advance” switch in the cooking view
(1 when enabled).
|
None of this data is uploaded to us. It is readable only by this site (same-origin) and only on your device. You can remove it at any time by:
- deleting individual recipes from the library page;
- using the Reset button in the cooking view to clear a single recipe's progress;
- clearing site data for this site in your browser settings;
- using a private / incognito window, which discards all of the above when it closes.
4. Media inside recipes
A .recipe file can contain images, animated GIFs and short videos. When you
upload such a file, the media is read locally from the archive and displayed from the
browser's in-memory blob URLs. It never leaves your device. The same applies to media you
attach in the Recipe Maker: it is added to the .recipe archive you save,
which stays on your device unless you choose to share or export it yourself.
5. Hosting and server logs
The site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes technical information needed to deliver pages and protect the service — for example your IP address, the requested URL, the time of the request, your browser's user agent and similar request metadata. Cloudflare may also set strictly necessary security cookies (for example a bot-management cookie) at its edge.
We do not run analytics on visitor behaviour, and we do not build profiles or share visitor data with advertisers. Cloudflare handles request data under its own terms; see the Cloudflare privacy policy for details, including retention periods and international transfers.
6. Cookies
We do not set cookies for analytics, advertising or preferences. The only cookies that may appear are strictly necessary security cookies set by Cloudflare. Because we do not use non-essential cookies, you will not see a cookie consent banner here.
7. Third-party links
Pages on this site link to external resources, for example Cloudflare's policies and the WCAG specification. Once you follow such a link, the destination site's privacy policy applies.
8. Legal bases (EEA and UK visitors)
We do not process your personal data for our own purposes beyond publishing the site. Where a legal basis is required, we rely on our legitimate interest in operating a secure, available website (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR), which covers the technical request data processed by our host. We do not carry out automated decision-making or profiling.
9. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to the processing of your personal data, and to lodge a complaint with your data protection authority. Because we hold no personal data about you ourselves — your recipes and progress are stored in your browser and never reach us — most requests can be satisfied by clearing your browser storage for this site. If your question concerns data handled by our host, write to rohan@torul.org and we will help where we can.
10. Retention
Data in your browser's IndexedDB and localStorage is kept until you delete it. Server-side request data is retained by Cloudflare according to its own policies.
11. Children
The site is aimed at home cooks, students and anyone preparing food. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone, including children. We recommend adult supervision for young cooks, especially around heat and sharp tools.
12. Changes to this policy
If the site's behaviour changes (for example, if analytics or a sync feature are ever added), this policy will be updated and the date at the top changed. We recommend checking this page occasionally.
13. Contact
Questions about privacy: rohan@torul.org. See also the contact page.