Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 23, 2026

Overview

Probe is a local HTTP/HTTPS debugging proxy. We are committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what data the Probe app handles and how it is treated, and what this website (useprobe.app) counts about its visitors.

Data That Stays on Your Device

Everything you capture stays on your machine. All captured network traffic, certificates, settings, and session data are stored locally and never leave your device. Specifically:

  • Network traffic — HTTP/HTTPS requests and responses captured by the proxy are stored only in local memory or local session files on your computer.
  • CA certificates — Generated locally and stored on your computer (macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/probe_ca/; Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Probe\probe_ca\). A copy of the public certificate, never the private key, may also be saved in ~/.probe/ for command-line tools. Private keys never leave your machine.
  • Settings and preferences — Stored locally via system preferences. Not synced or uploaded anywhere.
  • Saved sessions and collections — Stored as local files on your computer.

Data We Do Not Collect

Probe does not:

  • Send any captured traffic — no URLs, hosts, headers, or request/response bodies — to external servers
  • Track your browsing or debugging activity, or anything about what you inspect
  • Require an account or login
  • Use advertising cookies or cross-site trackers
  • Sell your data or share it with advertisers

Anonymous Usage Analytics

To learn which features are actually used so we can improve Probe, the app sends a small amount of anonymous, aggregate usage data through Aptabase, a privacy-focused, open-source analytics service. This is opt-out: it is on by default and you can turn it off at any time in Settings → General → Privacy.

What is sent:

  • That the app was launched, and the coarse platform (macOS or Windows)
  • That a core feature was used — the feature name only: opening Composer, adding a Map Local or Map Remote rule, saving a session, or opening a Files connection
  • The outcome of the in-app certificate install (succeeded, failed, or cancelled) and whether the manual install steps were opened, with the coarse platform — never the error text, file paths, or any certificate details
  • Added automatically by the Aptabase SDK: the app version and build number, the operating system and its version, the system language and region (locale), whether it is a debug build, and a random session ID that is kept only in memory and replaced after an hour of inactivity

What is never sent:

  • Any captured traffic — no URLs, hosts, headers, bodies, or timing
  • Anything that could identify you or reveal what you are debugging
  • No account, cookies, or persistent device identifiers are used

Analytics requests bypass Probe's own proxy, so they are never captured or routed through it.

Website Analytics

This website (not the Probe app) counts page views and clicks on its download buttons with Vercel Web Analytics, so we can see which pages and installers people use. The counts are anonymous and aggregated: Vercel Web Analytics sets no cookies, does not follow you across other websites, and it records no personal data such as your name or email address. A visitor is told apart from others only by an anonymous hash that Vercel resets every day.

What is recorded:

  • Which page was viewed, the referring site, and coarse details such as country, browser, operating system and device type
  • That a download button was clicked, with one property: the platform (macOS or Windows)

The Probe app never contacts Vercel Web Analytics, and none of this involves traffic you capture with Probe.

Network Connections

Probe makes the following outbound network connections:

  • Update checks — When Probe starts, and about once an hour while it is running (on Windows, once you allow automatic checks), it downloads an update feed from our download server hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). On macOS each update in that feed carries a signature, which Probe checks against a key built into the app before installing; Windows updates are not signed this way yet. Probe also fetches release notes (from the same server, or from GitHub as a fallback) and a short announcements file from GitHub. These requests contain no personal data and no captured traffic; as with any web request, the server can see your IP address and basic request details such as the user agent.
  • Proxied traffic — When the proxy is running, Probe forwards HTTP/HTTPS requests from your configured devices to their intended destinations.
  • Connections you start — Requests you send from Composer, API Flows or the WebSocket client, an upstream proxy you configure, and the remote file servers you open in Files go only to the servers you enter.
  • CA certificate server — Probe runs a local HTTP server (default port 9098) to serve the CA certificate to devices on your local network.
  • Usage analytics — When enabled, anonymous usage events are sent to Aptabase (*.aptabase.com). These contain no captured traffic and no personal data, and the request bypasses Probe's own proxy. See the Anonymous Usage Analytics section above.

Upstream Proxy

If you configure an upstream proxy, Probe routes traffic through that proxy server. Credentials you enter for upstream proxy authentication are stored locally and sent only to the configured proxy server.

Security Considerations

Probe performs HTTPS interception (MITM) to inspect encrypted traffic. This means:

  • Probe generates a local Certificate Authority (CA) that you install on your devices.
  • Probe can see the decrypted contents of HTTPS traffic routed through it.
  • This data stays on your machine: Probe does not send it anywhere. Probe's local API listens only on 127.0.0.1 and requires a token that Probe writes to ~/.probe/api-handshake.json. If you connect an AI assistant or another tool to it, for example through Probe's MCP server, that tool can read your captured traffic, and what it does with that data is governed by the tool and its provider.
  • You should only use Probe on networks and devices you own or have permission to debug.

Children's Privacy

Probe is a developer tool and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect any personal information from anyone, including children.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated date.

Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy, please contact us at info@useprobe.app.