Privacy Policy

1. The Short Version

This policy covers VanguardLiquid, VanguardCity and VanguardFX DML, and the website and customer panel at vanguardfx.pro.

We collect the minimum needed to sell you a licence and to make that licence work: an email address, a hardware identifier, and a record of your orders. We do not sell your data, we do not share it for advertising, and the plugins do not watch what you are working on. The software does not upload your scenes, caches, meshes or renders. It never has.

2. What We Collect

• Email address — to create your account, verify it, deliver licences and answer support.
• Password — stored only as a salted one-way hash. We cannot read it.
• Hardware identifier (HWID) — see section 3.
• Order and licence records — product, plan, dates, licence key, and the payment method you chose.
• Payment receipts you upload — where you pay by bank transfer or USDT and send us proof.
• Google account identifier and email — only if you choose to sign in with Google.
• Telegram username or account id — only if you choose to link Telegram or buy through our Telegram bot.
• Support messages — what you send us, so we can answer it.
• Server logs — IP address, timestamp, page requested and user agent, kept for security and abuse prevention.

We do not collect your full card number or bank credentials. Card payments are handled by our checkout provider; those details go to them, not to us.

3. Hardware Identifiers

When you activate a licence, the plugin derives a hardware identifier from characteristics of your machine and sends it to us. It is a one-way value used to bind a licence to a machine, to reset that binding when you change hardware, and to detect one licence being run on many machines.

It is not a browsing identifier, we do not combine it with data from other sources, and it is not shared with anyone for any purpose other than issuing and validating your licence.

4. Why We Hold It

We process this data to perform our contract with you (issuing and supporting the licence you bought), to comply with legal and accounting obligations, and for our legitimate interest in preventing fraud and unlicensed use. Where the law requires consent — for example for optional marketing email — we ask for it, and you can withdraw it at any time.

If you join a waiting list, we use your email only to tell you when that product is available, and for nothing else.

5. Who Else Sees It

We share personal data only with parties who need it to deliver the Service:

• Our checkout provider, to take card payments and issue receipts.
• Our hosting and email providers, who process data on our instructions.
• Google and Telegram, only where you have chosen to use those sign-in or messaging routes, under their own privacy policies.
• Authorities or advisers, where we are legally required to disclose, or where disclosure is necessary to establish or defend legal claims.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not disclose it to advertisers or data brokers.

6. How Long We Keep It

• Account and licence records — for as long as you have an account, and afterwards for as long as we must keep them for tax, accounting and legal-claim purposes.
• Payment receipts — for the period our accounting obligations require.
• Support messages — normally up to 24 months.
• Server logs — normally up to 12 months.

When data is no longer needed we delete it or irreversibly anonymise it.

7. Cookies and Local Storage

We use a session cookie to keep you signed in, and a CSRF token to stop other sites submitting forms as you. Both are strictly necessary and cannot be switched off without breaking sign-in.

We may use your browser's local storage to remember small preferences, such as which tab you last opened. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

7b. What the Plugin Stores on Your Computer

The website's cookies are one thing; the plugin is another, and it writes a small number of files on your own machine. None of them is sent anywhere, and none of them records anything about your work. They are listed here so that nothing about the software is a surprise.

• Your licence file — %LOCALAPPDATA%\VanguardFX\. This is the signed licence itself. Deleting it deactivates the plugin on that computer until you install the licence again.
• A date marker — a small hidden file (vfx_seen.dat) in the same folder, and a matching value under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VanguardFX. Each holds one number: the latest calendar date the plugin has seen on that machine. It exists so that setting the system clock backwards cannot make an expired trial look unexpired. It contains no identifier, no usage data and no history — one date, and nothing else.

Nothing in that list leaves your computer. The plugin does not upload your scenes, caches, meshes or renders, and it does not report what you do with it. You may delete any of these files at any time; the plugin will simply ask you to activate again, and the date marker will start over from the date the build you are running was compiled.

8. Your Rights

Subject to your local law, you may ask us to give you a copy of your data, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to our use of it, or send it to another provider. To exercise any of these, write to us from the address on your account.

Deleting your account also deletes your licence records, which means we can no longer reissue or reset a licence for you. We will say so before we act.

If you are in the UK or the EEA you may also complain to your local data protection authority.

9. Security

The site is served over HTTPS. Passwords are stored only as salted hashes. Licence signing keys are held outside the web root and are not reachable from the website. Administrative pages require authentication and are protected against cross-site request forgery.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting your personal data, we will notify you and the relevant authority where the law requires it.

10. Children

The Service is intended for professional use and is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect their data; if we learn that we have, we delete it.

11. Changes

We may update this policy. The "last updated" date above always reflects the current version. If a change is material, we will make it obvious rather than quietly editing the page.

12. Contact

Privacy questions and requests: vanguardfx.pro/support.