Privacy policy

Version 8, 21 October 2026. Applies to the Zed Launcher app, to counting its use on our server and to the zedlauncher.com website.

Who processes the data

Controller: Bc. Michal Holeček, company ID (IČO) 30100186, Neznašov 143, 373 02 Všemyslice, Czech Republic (sole trader registered in the Czech Trade Register), contact: info@zedlauncher.com

In short

• The launcher stores no ID on your PC and nothing else that could identify you. There is nothing to turn on or off.
• Only our server counts usage, from requests the launcher makes anyway (server list, a "still running" signal, ad slots and featured servers).
• The one extra thing: when you start joining a featured (promoted) server, the launcher reports it anonymously, so we can count how many joins the promotion brought. No ID of any kind. Joins of other servers are not counted.
• We don't store your IP address. We only keep totals, for at most 25 months.

What the launcher sends

• Server list: at start and then every 5 minutes while the window is visible (not while it's minimized or hidden in the notification area), it downloads the server list from our server.
• "Still running" signal: at start and then every 2 minutes while the launcher is running (even minimized or hidden in the notification area), it sends an empty request with no data at all.
• First start after installation: the very first time after a clean installation, the launcher adds a one-time "first start" flag (first=1) to the "still running" signal. No ID – it's only used to count new installations.
• Ad slots: it asks which image and link the ad slots have and loads the image from our server. Clicking an ad first goes to our address (api.zedlauncher.com/r/ad/…), which counts the click and redirects you to the advertiser's page.
• Featured servers: about every 5 minutes (even while the window is hidden) it asks which servers are featured right now (server promotion, the "Featured" label at the top of the list).
• Closing the window: by default the close button doesn't quit the launcher, it only hides it in the notification area (the icon at the bottom right of the taskbar). The launcher then keeps running: it sends the "still running" signal, asks for announcements and featured servers and checks for updates; it doesn't download the server list or ads. To quit completely, right-click the icon → Quit. If you turn off "Keep running in the notification area when closed" in Settings, the close button quits the launcher again.
• Announcements from Zed Launcher: about 20 seconds after start and then every 2 minutes (even while the launcher is hidden in the notification area) the launcher asks our server (GET /api/v1/notice) whether we have an important message (news, outages). The request is empty, without any ID. The launcher shows a new message as a Windows notification and only stores the numbers of messages already shown on your PC, so they don't appear again. You can turn this off in Settings (Announcements from Zed Launcher); the launcher then doesn't ask at all.
• Joining a featured server: only when you start joining a server that is featured right now, the launcher sends one message: that server's address and whether you started the join from the "Featured" row or from somewhere else (list, Favorites, History, a link). Nothing else – no ID, name or details about your PC. For other servers the launcher does not report joins (exceptions without any data about you – a manually added server and a server that does not respond – see the next point).
• Manually added server and a server that does not respond: when you add a server by its address (IP and port) and the server responds to the launcher, the launcher sends its address to our server so it can add it to the server list for everyone (only the server address is stored). When a server does not respond to the launcher – when adding it manually, in Server info or while joining – the launcher asks our server about that server instead; our server queries it itself and stores nothing (it keeps the answer in memory for only 15 seconds). In neither case is your IP address or anything that could tell who asked stored with the server address.
• Feedback: only when you send it yourself (the Feedback button in the window's title bar). It sends the message text, an optional contact (e-mail or Discord, if you fill it in so we can reply), the launcher language and, with the request, its version. The server also stores the country with the message (only the code, e.g. CZ). It doesn't store your IP address – to protect against spam it only keeps it in memory for a moment as a fingerprint. Only the launcher's operator reads the messages; we keep at most the last 2000 messages (older ones are deleted automatically) and may delete individual messages sooner. You can ask for your message to be deleted via the contact above.
• Each request only carries what comes with it on the internet: your IP address (the reply couldn't reach you without it) and the app name with its version, e.g. ZedLauncher/0.2.0 (Windows). Never your in-game name, Steam account, file paths or any ID.

What the server counts from it

• How many different launchers there were per day, week and month. From the IP address (for IPv6 only its network part) and the app name the server computes a one-way fingerprint (hash) with a salt, i.e. a random secret key. Day, week and month each have their own salt. When the period ends, the salt and the fingerprints are discarded and only the count remains. Fingerprints from different periods can't be linked, and the IP address can't be recovered from them.
• Launcher version (from the app name) and country (estimated from the IP address using a database stored on our own server; only the country code, e.g. CZ, is kept).
• How many launchers are online right now (made a request in the last 5 minutes) and how many times the launcher was opened (the first request after a longer pause). For this the server only keeps a fingerprint in memory, with a key that is created anew on every server restart and is never stored.
• New installations: only the number per day (from the "first start" flag). So that a repeated request isn't counted twice, the server keeps a fingerprint until the end of the day, the same way as for the number of launchers.
• Ad clicks: only the number of clicks per slot per day. We don't measure ad views separately; we estimate them from the number of launcher opens.
• Joins of featured servers: only the number of joins started for each featured server per day, split into "from the Featured row" and "from elsewhere". The server doesn't store your IP address or anything else that could tell who joined.

What we don't collect

• no ID on your PC, no cookies or anything similar. The launcher remembers nothing about you and sends nothing extra (except feedback, when you send it yourself, and the one-time first-start flag without any ID);
• your in-game name, the servers you join (the exceptions are the anonymous daily count of joins of featured servers and the addresses of manually added or non-responding servers, without any data about you, see above), passwords, e-mail (except the contact you fill in yourself in feedback), Steam ID, file paths or the list of mods;
• your IP address. It is never written to the database or logs. The server only keeps it in memory for a moment to compute the fingerprint and to protect itself from overload (even that only uses a fingerprint, for at most 24 hours);
• anything through third-party tools (Google Analytics and similar). Usage statistics are only counted by our own server.

Other services the launcher talks to

To work, the launcher also talks directly to these services. Each of them sees your IP address (the reply couldn't reach you without it) and follows its own privacy policy. We don't give them anything extra.

• DayZ game servers: the launcher queries them directly for status, ping, players and mods (A2S query) – for servers in the list, in Server info and while joining. The server list can't work without it, so it can't be turned off.
• Steam (Valve): mods are downloaded and checked by the Steam client installed on your PC (the launcher only tells it which mods to download). The launcher looks up mod names and versions on the public Steam Web API (api.steampowered.com) – it sends only Workshop mod numbers, no data about you and not your Steam account.
• GitHub: the launcher checks for and downloads its updates from here – at start and then regularly. If you turn off automatic updates in Settings, the launcher still checks for a new version but downloads it only after you confirm. When you click "Install the community mod" on the Singleplayer page, it also downloads the Community Offline Mode community mod from here (from its author's repository).
• Discord: only if you turn on "Show game on Discord" in Settings. The launcher then tells the Discord app on your PC which server you're playing on (name, map, number of players); Discord shows it to your friends. It's off by default.

The zedlauncher.com website

We measure website traffic with Ahrefs Web Analytics (Ahrefs Pte. Ltd.). It only measures in aggregate: how many people visited, which pages, where they came from (referring site), country and device or browser type. It uses no cookies or anything similar, doesn't store IP addresses and doesn't build visitor profiles. The launcher doesn't talk to this service. Admin pages don't have the tracking script.

Clicks on Download (zedlauncher.com/download) are counted by our server: the number of clicks per day and the number of different downloaders per day, week and month. The website doesn't send it your IP address – only one-way fingerprints of your network (the IP address, for IPv6 its network part) made with a secret key, separately for the day, week and month. The server hashes them once more with the period's salt and deletes them when the period ends; only the counts remain.

Why and on what basis

We need to know how many people use the launcher, which versions are still running (updates and support for older versions), where players come from (choice of servers and languages), how many clicks the ad slots brought and how many joins server promotion brought. We don't sell server promotion or ads at the moment; if that changes, the income will pay for running the server.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We chose the least intrusive way: nothing on your PC, no ID, only totals.

Where and how long

• Data is processed only by our server (a VPS at Contabo, data centre in France, EU).
• The server keeps fingerprints for the current day, week and month only until the period ends (on its disk too, so they survive a restart). Then it deletes them together with the salt. Fingerprints for "online" and launcher opens are kept in memory only.
• Totals (e.g. "120 different launchers on Monday, 80 of them from CZ") are kept for 25 months, so the same months of two consecutive years can be compared. Then they are deleted.
• We don't sell or share the data. Advertisers and owners of featured servers only see totals for their slot or server.

Your rights

• Objection: you can object to processing based on legitimate interest at any time via the contact above.
• Access, rectification, erasure and restriction: write to the contact above. Because we store nothing that could identify you, we can't find you in the totals (Art. 11 GDPR). The only way to avoid being counted entirely is not to use the launcher.
• Complaints: to the Czech Office for Personal Data Protection (uoou.gov.cz) or the supervisory authority where you live.

Older launcher versions

Launcher versions up to 0.1.9 sent more detailed anonymous statistics with a random installation ID if you agreed. The new version deletes the ID and any unsent records from your PC (the %APPDATA%\Zed Launcher\telemetry folder) and the consent choice from its settings on first start. It sends nothing of the kind any more.

Changes

If we start counting something new or for another purpose, we will update this policy and mention the change in the launcher release notes.