Privacy policy
The Physics Lab is free to use and never asks you to sign up. This page explains what is collected when you visit, who collects it, and how to opt out.
Last updated: 25 October 2026
No accounts, no forms
There are no accounts, logins, or sign-up forms. The Physics Lab does not ask for your name, email address, or other personal details. Simulations, calculations, and worksheets run in your browser. The teacher activities and answer keys work the same way: students complete them on paper or in their teacher’s own assignment, so no student work or names ever reach this site.
Usage statistics (Google Analytics)
We use Google Analytics (measurement ID G-2ZHXFW2460) to count visits and see which pages are useful. Google Analytics uses cookies to record things like the pages you view, how you arrived, your approximate location, and your device and browser type. We use these reports only in aggregate, to improve the lab. Google processes this data under the Google Privacy Policy; see also how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
Advertising (Adsterra)
Ads help keep The Physics Lab free. A few clearly labelled ad spaces are served by Adsterra. Adsterra and its advertising partners may use cookies or similar identifiers to show ads, limit how often you see the same ad, measure performance, and detect fraud. That information is collected directly by them, not by us, and handled under their own privacy policies, including Adsterra’s. We never place ads inside a simulation or its controls, and worksheets print without ads. Students who arrive from Google Classroom, Canvas, or Schoology, or through a link shared with our Share to Classroom button, see no ads at all on that device for 30 days.
Stored on your device
Practice saves only your best score for each topic in your browser’s local storage, so it stays on this device and is never sent to us. Local storage also keeps your cookie choice (cookieConsent, see below) and, if you arrive from a school platform, an “ad-free until” date for 30 days; it holds nothing else. Shared experiment links contain the input values and time you chose, so anyone with the link can reproduce that setup.
Fonts and hosting
Google Fonts supplies the typefaces and receives the usual font requests from your browser. Our hosting provider may keep standard access logs, such as IP addresses and requested pages, to deliver and protect the site.
Cookie choices
Visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland see a small cookie banner. Until you choose, Google Analytics runs without cookies and no ads load. Accept allows analytics and advertising cookies; Reject keeps analytics cookie-free and shows no ads. Your choice is stored in your browser for 180 days (as cookieConsent), and you can change it at any time with Cookie settings in the footer.
Your choices
- Block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or browse in a private window.
- Use an ad or tracker blocker. The lab works without ads or analytics.
- Install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on to stop Google Analytics on every site.
- Clear this site’s data in your browser to remove saved practice scores.
Changes to this policy
If how the site handles data changes, we will update this page and the date above. To learn more about how the lab’s models and data work, read About The Physics Lab.