About tickfern
tickfern makes quiet timers: countdowns, a stopwatch with laps, and classroom, Pomodoro, and kids timers — free forever, with no ads, no sign-up, and no account. That is not a marketing line; it is the product. Every page is a single self-contained file that loads instantly, works offline, and keeps your settings on your own device.
Why no ads
Ads are a deal-breaker in the places timers matter most. A banner above a classroom countdown distracts thirty students; a video pre-roll before a two-minute kitchen timer is absurd; ad networks track the people using the page, including children. Most big timer sites are either ad-heavy or quietly paywalled, which is why teachers keep rebuilding their own. tickfern exists so nobody has to.
What tickfern stores
Almost nothing, and none of it leaves your device. Your volume level, mute choice, light or dark theme, and timer view preference are kept in your browser's local storage so the page remembers you next visit. There are no accounts, no advertising trackers, no cookies, and no server-side storage of anything you time. Page views are counted by Cloudflare's privacy-respecting, cookie-less Web Analytics (no cross-site tracking), the only third-party request on any page.
How it is built
Each timer is a static page. The countdown math, the shrinking-disc rendering, and the gentle alert chime (synthesized with the Web Audio API, no audio files) all run locally, and the only network traffic beyond the page itself is Cloudflare's privacy-respecting, cookie-less page-view counting. Once visited, the site installs as an offline-capable web app, so it keeps working on school networks, planes, and dead zones.
Who builds it
tickfern is built and maintained by Nan Liang, an independent developer. Nan Liang also writes at javaeye.dev/about. Questions, bug reports, and classroom wish-lists are welcome at support@tickfern.com. A person reads it.
The promise
Free forever · No ads · No sign-up. If tickfern ever adds a paid anything, it will be an addition: nothing now free will move behind a paywall, and the classroom and kids pages will never carry advertising.