How to delete your Aether account

About deleting your Aether account

Aether is a decentralized, peer-to-peer social networking platform designed for public and private discussions without the oversight of a central authority. Unlike traditional social media, Aether stores data on the user's own computer, which enables users to maintain full control over their content but also shifts the responsibility of data management entirely onto the user.

Users may wish to delete their Aether account for several specific reasons related to the nature of the platform:

• Changing personal preference regarding decentralized networks.
• Reclaiming storage space used by the local data cache of discussion threads.
• Moving away from the specific community moderation style found on Aether boards.
• Enhancing digital hygiene by purging inactive local software installations.

What happens to your data

Because Aether functions through a distributed protocol, there is no 'Delete Account' button on a central server. When you decide to stop using Aether, your data persists on your machine until you manually intervene. Removing the data involves the following:

• Deleting the local directory where Aether stores its SQLite databases and configuration files.
• Uninstalling the desktop application, which stops the background processes that participate in the peer-to-peer synchronization.
• Clearing cached network artifacts that the software might have saved during peer communication.

Note that while you can remove your local copy, any messages or threads you have already broadcasted to the network may still be cached on the devices of other users who were part of those peer-to-peer clusters at the time of your posting.

Privacy considerations

Aether’s reliance on peer-to-peer technology introduces unique privacy implications. Unlike platforms that aggregate data for advertising, Aether is built for transparency, meaning your identity is tied to the keys generated during your initial setup.

• Your local activity is stored in an unencrypted format unless you apply secondary disk encryption to your computer.
• The network tracks your IP address when you connect to other peers in the swarm.
• Deletion is permanent only when you physically destroy the local keys; if your key files are backed up, your identity can be restored.
• Consider using a firewall to restrict which peers your Aether client can communicate with.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I delete my posts from other people's computers?

No. Since Aether is decentralized, once your post is propagated to other nodes in the network, you cannot force those users to delete the content from their local machines.

Is my identity tied to a phone number?

No. Aether uses cryptographic keys, not phone numbers or email addresses, to identify users.

What should I delete to ensure my Aether data is gone?

You must uninstall the Aether binary and delete the application data folder, typically found in your user profile path under 'AppData' or the equivalent local configuration directory.

Does Aether sell my user data?

No. Because there is no central company and no cloud server, there is no entity collecting data to sell to third-party advertisers.

Can I recover my account after deleting the local files?

Only if you have an external backup of your cryptographic keys. If you have not saved these keys, the account and its associated identity are lost permanently upon deletion.

Does uninstalling the app automatically remove my data?

Often, uninstallers leave behind configuration and database files to prevent accidental data loss. You must manually locate and remove these files to ensure a clean slate.