What this site does not do
- No cookies, no advertising and no analytics trackers.
- No third-party fonts, videos or social-media embeds. Everything is served from this site, with one exception described below.
- No accounts or log-ins.
The one exception: the AlphaFold explorer
The AlphaFold explorer shows live data. When you pick a protein, search, or press “Send request” there, your browser contacts two public science databases directly:
- AlphaFold DB (alphafold.ebi.ac.uk), run by EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) with Google DeepMind, for predicted structures (and, when you press their buttons, predicted complexes and AlphaMissense predictions);
- UniProt (rest.uniprot.org), run by EMBL-EBI, the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics and the Protein Information Resource, for protein names, searches and annotations.
Two more EMBL-EBI services are contacted only when you press their buttons:
- PDBe (www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe), when you ask for experimental structures to compare with the prediction;
- the EBI Proteins API (www.ebi.ac.uk/proteins/api), when you add reported variants to the variant panel.
Like any website you visit, they receive your IP address, basic browser details and what you asked for (a protein accession, structure code or search words). This site adds no cookies, identifiers or referrer to those requests, and nothing is contacted until you act. Everything else (calculations, charts and figure downloads) happens on your own device. The PyMOL and ChimeraX scripts you can download open the model from AlphaFold DB when you run them on your computer. The AlphaFold 3 job builder only writes a file on your device; if you upload it to AlphaFold Server, that happens under Google’s terms, with your own account. How these services handle data: EMBL-EBI terms of use and UniProt privacy notice.
The playground’s AI tools (the mutation scanner and the protein map) run on your own device: the model is downloaded from this site, and the sequences you analyse are never sent anywhere.
If you prefer not to contact them, simply don’t use the playground. Every other page works without any outside requests.
Images, sequences and numbers you analyse
The tools (the Image lab, lab calculators, sequence tools, statistics helper and nuclei counter) work entirely in your browser. Your images, sequences and data are never uploaded, stored or shared, and these pages make no outside requests. The demo images and sequences come from this site. Files you save (CSV, TIFF, PNG, macros, reports) are created on your device.
What is stored on your device
Only if you change it yourself: your colour theme (light or dark) is saved in your browser so the site remembers it. This information never leaves your device, and you can clear it at any time by clearing this site’s data in your browser.
Server logs
Like every website, my hosting provider may keep standard technical logs (such as IP address, time and page requested) for security and to keep the site running. I do not use them to identify you.
Emails
If you email me, I use your message only to reply, and I delete it when it is no longer needed.
Children
I do not collect any personal data from children. Questions for the “Ask a scientist” corner should be sent by a parent or teacher, without children’s personal details.
Contact
Questions about privacy? See the contact page.