Last updated 18 October 2026
Bottleneck is a trading name of PROMEC SYSTEMS LLC, a limited liability company based in Rhode Island, United States, which is the data controller for anything described here. It is short because the product genuinely does very little with your data.
Bottleneck sends nothing about your computer unless you choose to share it.
There is no sign-in, no telemetry and no crash reporting. Scans are written to your own disk
— %LOCALAPPDATA%\Bottleneck\history, or beside the executable in portable mode —
and stay there until you delete them. A scan result leaves your machine only if you send it with feedback, or turn on
Send anonymous results after each scan - in Settings, or when Bottleneck asks once
after your first scan - which is off unless you choose it (see below).
Measuring a game records how long each frame took, using Intel’s PresentMon to read the event tracing Windows already keeps. That recording names the programs that drew on screen while it ran, so it is analysed on your machine and deleted straight away; only the summary (the game, its frame rates and what limited them) is kept, beside your scans. None of it is ever sent to us, including when anonymous results are switched on.
Network checks (from version 1.4) read what Windows already records about this machine’s own connections: adapter speeds and error counts, which connection carries traffic, and Windows’ log of Wi-Fi connecting and disconnecting. From that log only the times of drops are kept; the log also names each network, and those names are never copied.
Timing your router (from version 1.4). Apart from the connections to us listed below, this is the only network traffic Bottleneck creates, and only when you ask for it: when you press Test connection, and while it measures a game you asked it to measure. It sends small pings - five a second - to your own router and times the replies. Each is sent so that it cannot travel past your router, none is sent at all unless the router is on a home or office network, and they carry nothing about your machine. The timings are kept with your results on this machine; the router’s address is not kept. Scans, weekly checks and unattended estate scans never send them.
Wi-Fi signal and band are read only if you turn them on in Settings. Windows treats them as location information, so it asks once for permission and shows that Bottleneck used your location while a scan reads them. Bottleneck keeps the signal strength, band, channel and Wi-Fi standard with your scans. It never stores network names, router addresses or anything about other networks nearby, never works out where you are, and none of it is sent anywhere.
One-click fixes (from version 1.5) change a Windows setting only when you press the button. So that each change can be undone, Bottleneck records it on this machine, beside your scans: which setting, what it was before and after, and when. The record is never sent anywhere.
The heat and stability check (from version 1.6) runs only when you start it. Its results - speeds, temperatures, any errors, and the machine's name and parts, which a certificate shows - are kept on this machine with your scans, and are never sent anywhere.
Start-up times and antivirus (from version 1.6.13). A scan reads how long Windows has taken to start over the last 30 days, from the record Windows itself keeps, with the names of any programs, drivers and services Windows says made a start slower than usual. It also reads which antivirus programs Windows Security lists, and whether TRIM is switched on for solid-state drives. These are kept with your scans on this machine. They are never part of anonymous results, and feedback never includes those names.
The “while you work” check (from version 1.6.13) runs only when you start it, for the 10 to 30 minutes you choose. It reads what Task Manager shows - how busy the processor and drives are and how much memory is in use - and, every ten seconds, how much processor time, memory and drive use each running program had. It records only those figures and the programs’ names, never what the programs are showing or working on. The result, naming the programs that used the most, is kept on this machine beside your scans, and is never sent anywhere.
Known faults (from version 1.6.14). A scan reads which processor chip the PC has and the microcode it is running, and each drive’s firmware version, and compares them with a list of known faults — such as Intel’s 13th and 14th gen instability — that comes with the reference data. These are kept with your scans on this machine. Anonymous results never include them; as for every other check, they say only which findings applied.
Scan problems (from version 1.6.2). When part of a scan cannot be read, or a scan cannot finish, Bottleneck notes on this machine which step it was and the error Windows gave, in a small log beside your scans that never grows past 64 KB. It goes into a support file if you create one, and with feedback if you choose to include it, so that the problem can be found. It is never sent anywhere otherwise.
The application connects to us in five ways, and only these:
Bottleneck/1.6.12), and we count how many of these checks arrive each day, and
from how many connections, to know how many copies are in use - never who made them.
They can be switched off in Settings, and the application works without them. If you press
Update now, the new installer is downloaded the same way.Your licence key itself is verified on your own machine against a public key compiled into the application. Nothing checks in with us to keep it working.
If you turn on Send anonymous results after each scan (under Contribute anonymous results in Settings), each scan sends us one small record so that Bottleneck can tell people how their machine compares with others that have the same parts. It is off unless you turn it on, and Show exactly what is sent beside the switch displays the exact record before you decide. From version 1.6.12, after your first scan Bottleneck asks once whether to turn it on, with the same Show exactly what is sent beside the question. It stays off unless you choose to share, and you are not asked again.
A record contains only:
It never contains your name, email address, licence key, computer name, serial numbers, network details, the programs you run, or your IP address. The results are stored without anything that identifies you or your computer.
We publish only combined figures, and only once at least 30 different machines have contributed to a figure — never an individual record. We keep contributed results for up to three years. Turning the switch off stops anything more being sent. Because a record says nothing about who sent it, we cannot find yours by your name or email; if you would like what your machine has sent deleted, copy the machine code from Show exactly what is sent and email it to us.
You can send us feedback from the application - a message from Settings, or Is this right? under a finding - and from the support page. Nothing is sent until you press Send, and in the application Show exactly what is sent displays the whole message first.
Feedback contains only:
It never contains your licence key, computer name, network details, serial numbers or the programs you run, and your IP address is not recorded. We keep feedback for up to two years so we can act on it, and it is emailed to our own mailbox when it needs reading. To have something you sent deleted, email us with your address or what you wrote, so we can find it.
Scan files record the machine’s own network configuration — IP address, subnet, gateway and DNS suffix. On a single machine that file never leaves your disk. In an estate deployment the files are written to a shared folder you choose, so treat that folder as inventory data: it describes your network layout. Nothing is sent anywhere either way.
We count visits to this website with Vercel Web Analytics, provided by Vercel, which hosts the site. It uses no cookies and keeps no IP addresses: a visitor is recognised only by a code calculated from the request, which Vercel discards after 24 hours, so nothing connects one day’s visit to the next, or to you. For each page viewed it records the page, the site you came from, your approximate location (country, region and city), and your browser, operating system and type of device, along with whether you pressed a download, buy or renew button (which one, never anything you typed). Everything after the page address is removed before it is sent, so order and account details in links from our emails never reach it. We see totals, never an individual visitor.
No advertising trackers and no cookies of our own. We do not build a profile of visitors.
On the pricing page, Paddle’s checkout script loads, and Paddle sets what it needs to process the transaction and prevent fraud. That is Paddle’s processing under their privacy policy, not ours. Paddle’s script also tries to load a script from ProfitWell, Paddle’s customer retention service. This site does not use it, and blocks it.
Purchases are handled by Paddle.com Market Ltd as merchant of record. Paddle collects your payment details and billing information; we never see your card number.
What reaches us is what we need to issue and support a licence:
Our lawful basis is performance of a contract: without an email address we cannot deliver what you paid for. We keep these records for as long as the licence is valid and for seven years afterwards, which is the period tax law generally requires for transaction records.
If you buy a renewal, you do not have to send us anything extra. We establish what you already own by reading your own purchase history from Paddle, so a renewal collects no more data about you than the original purchase did.
We keep the correspondence so we can follow up, and delete it when it is no longer useful. If you send an exported report, note that reports describe your hardware and may include your machine’s network configuration — but never your licence key. Send only what helps.
Paddle, as merchant of record. Our email providers: one delivers your key, and one hosts our own mailbox, where we receive a note of each order (what was bought, the price, your email address and the order reference — never your key). Our website host, Vercel, which also counts visits to the site as described above, and the database provider it connects to, Neon, which holds anonymous results if you choose to contribute them, and feedback you send. That is the whole list. We do not sell data, and we do not share it for anyone else’s marketing.
You can ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it. Deleting your record does not revoke your licence — the key works offline and is unaffected — but it does mean we can no longer reissue it if you lose it, so we will say so before we act.
Email sales@bottleneckonline.com. If you are unhappy with how we respond, where you can take it depends on where you live: in the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner’s Office; in the European Economic Area, your national data protection authority; in the United States, the attorney general of your state, or the Rhode Island Attorney General, where we are based.
The only optional collection is the anonymous results described above. If we ever add anything else that collects data — analytics or crash reporting, for example — we will update this page before it ships, not after, and it will be opt-in.