NetNewsWire is a free, open-source RSS reader for macOS, iPhone, and iPad, developed and published by Brent Simmons (Ranchero Software) with volunteer contributors; the source is public on GitHub under the MIT license and the project explicitly declines donations. Its privacy policy states the developer wants no private information and does only two things: collect crash logs from users who opt in, and keep aggregate web-server logs (which include IP addresses); the app requires no account. Caveats are structural rather than commercial: the app fetches feeds and their embedded HTML directly from publishers, who may run their own analytics; the optional Reader view calls a server hosted by Feedbin; syncing is opt-in via iCloud or third-party services (Feedbin, Feedly, Inoreader, BazQux, NewsBlur, The Old Reader, FreshRSS) that carry their own policies; and Apple's App Store label reports an unlinked User ID identifier rather than 'Data Not Collected'. Privacy Guides lists it as a recommended news aggregator. No breach, regulatory action, or third-party security audit involving NetNewsWire was found in this research.
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NetNewsWire's privacy policy, written in the name of developer Brent Simmons, states the project does only two things with user data — gathers crash logs from users who opt in and logs website traffic viewed in aggregate — and explicitly says it does not want any private information; the app itself requires no account.
The App Store listing's Apple privacy label, as filed by seller Brent Simmons, reports one data type — an Identifiers/User ID entry under 'Data Not Linked to You' for App Functionality — rather than 'Data Not Collected'; Apple notes the developer's answers have not been verified by Apple, and the privacy policy does not describe what this identifier is.
The project's 'How to Support NetNewsWire' page states that the app is written for love rather than money and asks people not to send donations, and lists no sponsors, grants, or commercial revenue; the FAQ separately describes the app as made by volunteers.
The repository's LICENSE file publishes NetNewsWire's complete source under the MIT License with copyright held by Brent Simmons (2002–2025), letting anyone inspect, build, or fork the app.
The README, hosted under the Ranchero-Software GitHub organization, describes NetNewsWire as a free and open-source feed reader with a public issue tracker and community forum, but notes that public builds omit private API keys, so iCloud and Feedly account types and the Reader view are disabled in builds compiled from source.
The privacy policy discloses that opt-in crash logs from App Store builds are received by both Apple and the developer, that direct-download Mac builds send crash logs only to the developer, and that website logs (which include IP addresses) are kept confidential; no sale, advertising partner, or other third-party recipient is described.
The iCloud syncing help page states that iCloud sync stores the content of starred articles and, optionally, unread articles in the user's iCloud storage; NetNewsWire 7.0.4 added a switch for unread-article content that is on for existing sync users but off by default for new users.
The project FAQ states that the optional Reader view calls out to a server hosted for free by Feedbin to extract article text, and that syncing is available through Feedbin, Feedly, Inoreader, BazQux, NewsBlur, The Old Reader, FreshRSS, or iCloud — each an opt-in third-party service with its own privacy policy that receives the user's feed list and read/starred state.
The privacy policy states it is stored in the public NetNewsWire GitHub repository so users can track any changes, and directs questions to the public forum; no breach, regulatory action, third-party security audit, or bug-bounty program involving NetNewsWire was found in this research, so this pillar rests on a clean record with a versioned policy as the only affirmative artifact.
Privacy Guides lists NetNewsWire on its News Aggregators recommendations page, whose stated criteria require the software to be open source and to operate locally rather than as a cloud service.
The privacy policy states that neither netnewswire.com nor the developer's blog uses any cookies, JavaScript, trackers, or ads, and discloses no analytics or advertising SDK in the app; it separately warns that feed HTML displayed inside the app comes from third-party sites, some of which may run their own analytics such as counting article reads.