Privacy and cookies
In short: no ad networks and no profiles. I count visits without cookies, and ToolGuide sets no tracking cookies. What else ToolGuide keeps, and why, is below.
Who
ToolGuide (toolguide.io) is a site by Bright Idiots BV, set up by Ruud Caris. Bright Idiots BV is the data controller for the data that comes in through this site. Questions about your data go through the contact form.
Bright Idiots BV, Sphinxcour 9a, 6211 XZ Maastricht, the Netherlands. Chamber of Commerce (KvK) 63780135.
Visitor statistics without cookies
I count visits with Plausible Analytics, through the domain stats.brightidiots.com. Plausible sets no cookies and builds no profile of you. It does count which pages are viewed, which site you came from, from which country and on which type of device. Also which buttons are used, for example a click to a tool.
Your IP address is not stored.
Partner links and WeCanTrack
Links to tools go through toolguide.io/go/. For some tools that is a partner link: if you buy something, ToolGuide sometimes gets a small fee. Your price does not change.
To see which click led to a purchase, ToolGuide uses WeCanTrack. Its script only loads when you point at or click a partner link, not during a normal visit. It sets no cookie. Your click gets a click ID that goes along with the link to the partner network, and WeCanTrack receives that ID, the partner link and the page you clicked on. That way a sale can be matched to a click. Your name or email address are not part of it.
On the tool's own site, that tool's rules apply. Partner programmes often set their own cookie there.
What your browser remembers
If you choose light or dark mode, your own browser remembers it (localStorage, tg.theme). If you fill in the Submit a tool form, your browser keeps the fields until you close the tab (sessionStorage). This stays on your device; ToolGuide only receives it when you send the form. Clear it by deleting the site data in your browser.
Contact form
A message through the contact form contains your name, email address, subject, message and the page you were on. It is stored with Cloudflare and then moved into ToolGuide's admin; the copy at Cloudflare is deleted 30 days later. The message may also arrive by email, through the mail provider emailit. It is only used to reply or to fix a mistake.
Against spam, Cloudflare Turnstile may check in the background that a human is sending. To stop anyone from flooding the form, the site counts messages per visitor with a scrambled code of the IP address and the date, not the address itself.
Submitting a tool
When you submit a tool, your name, email address, company, the tool's details and possibly a logo are stored. They are only used for that submission. Your name and email address are erased 24 months after the decision.
If you choose a paid review, you pay through Stripe. Your payment details go straight to Stripe; ToolGuide does not see them.
ToolGuide has no newsletter. Your email address is not added to any mailing list and is never sold.
Error reports
If something breaks in your browser on the site, the page sends a short error report to ToolGuide: the error, the page without its query string, and from your browser only its name, version and operating system. No IP address, no cookies and nothing you type in forms.
Videos
Some tool pages show a video from YouTube. The video only loads when you click it, through youtube-nocookie.com. From that moment YouTube's rules apply.
Hosting
The site runs on Cloudflare. Like any web server, Cloudflare sees your IP address when you visit, among other things to protect the site. When you click through to a tool, the site only reads the country from that address to pick the right partner link. The country is not stored.
Your rights
You can ask which data ToolGuide holds about you, have it corrected or deleted, and object to its use. If you disagree with how your data is handled, you can complain to the Dutch data protection authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).
Get in touch · Updated on 30 October 2026