A tool that wants nothing from you

Who is behind it

Behind qrmacher.de there is no corporation and no investor, just me: Jochen Kächelin, a sole trader based in Uhingen near Göppingen, Germany. I have been building web applications for business clients for many years, mostly with Ruby on Rails, and I run a small digital agency at jochenk.com. So wherever this site says “we”, it means me.

The site is my own project, not client work. I built it, I write the code myself and I answer every email myself.

Why the site exists

If you need a QR code, you often end up with providers who do create it for free, but in return make you sign up, add a watermark or, most annoyingly, route the code through their own server. When the subscription runs out, the printed code is dead: on the menu, the sign, the sticker on the machine. How that works is explained in the article on dynamic QR codes.

Then there is privacy. Into a contact card you type your name, address and phone number, into a Wi-Fi code the password of your own network. With most providers, this data passes through someone else’s server.

qrmacher.de goes the other way: a tool that does exactly one thing, does it straight away and wants nothing from you. No account, no email address, no limit.

How it works

The codes are created by JavaScript in your browser. There is nowhere on our server that could receive what you type. That makes the privacy promise not a pledge but a property of how the site is built. You can check it, too: disconnect from the internet after the page has loaded and you can still keep creating codes. The video on the QR code for bank transfers page shows exactly that.

The pattern is calculated by the open-source library qrcode-generator by Kazuhiko Arase, which is hosted on our own server. The fonts and the generator’s scripts come from there as well. The only things loaded from outside are the consent banner and, once you agree, the ads.

All codes are static: the content sits in the pattern itself. They keep working even if qrmacher.de should one day cease to exist.

How the site is funded

Through ads from Google AdSense, and only if you agree in the consent banner. The ads sit below the generator, never above it or in the middle of it. When you open the page, you see the tool first.

There is no paid tier, no subscription and no newsletter. We never get to see what you type, and we do not sell data about visitors. We measure reach with a self-hosted Matomo that uses no cookies. The details are in the privacy policy.

Principles

• Codes that work without us. No redirect, no trial period, no expiry date.
• No to features that break codes. So there are no logos in the code here. The article on error correction explains why.
• Free to use. The codes you create belong to you, for commercial purposes too and without attribution.
• Usable by everyone. The site should also work with a keyboard, a screen reader and magnification. This is checked with barrierefreiheit-check.eu, another tool of mine. What does not work yet is set out in the accessibility statement.
• Ongoing upkeep. What changes on the site is listed under News.

More tools built on the same principle

Free, no sign-up, and the data stays on your device:

• wichtelmacher.de (in German): draw names for Secret Santa online, with no sign-up and no email addresses.
• erechnungsleser.de (in German): open, read and print e-invoices in the German XRechnung and ZUGFeRD formats, with no upload.

Contact

Found a mistake, missing a type of code, or have a question the Guide does not answer? Write to me at info@jochenk.com. The full provider details are in the legal notice.