Terms of Service

1.Agreement

These terms are an agreement between you and Hopfluent. They apply whenever you use the Hopfluent website, application, lessons and tools (together, the "Service"). You accept them when you start a lesson, use a tool, create an account or make a purchase. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

Our Privacy Policy and Cookie Notice explain how we handle personal data. They are provided for your information and are not part of this agreement.

2.Who we are

Hopfluent is an independently operated online learning service. In these terms, "Hopfluent", "we", "us" and "our" refer to the operator of the Service, and your agreement is with that operator.

You can reach us at legal@hopfluent.com. The operator's full legal details are available on request at legal@hopfluent.com.

3.Your rights as a consumer

If you use the Service as a consumer, you may have rights under the law of the place where you live that cannot be changed or waived by agreement. Nothing in these terms takes away or limits those rights. Where a section of these terms says that it does not apply to consumers in a particular place, the law of that place applies instead.

4.Eligibility

You may use the Service only if you are at least 16 years old. If you are old enough to use the Service but not old enough to enter into a binding agreement where you live, you may use it only if your parent or guardian has read and accepted these terms for you.

You may not use the Service if the law that applies to you prohibits it, or if we have previously ended your access for breaking these terms. By creating an account you accept these terms and so confirm that you are 16 or older. We do not otherwise verify age.

5.The Service

The Service teaches computer networking through interactive simulations, lessons, practice questions, reference tools and progress tracking. Parts of the Service are free without an account, and parts are free with an account. We may make parts of the Service available only on a paid plan, on the terms shown at the time of purchase. Access that is free today is not a promise that it will stay free, except where we have expressly said that something is free permanently.

Descriptions of planned or upcoming features are statements of our current intentions only. They are not commitments, and you should not make a purchase in reliance on a feature that is not yet available.

6.Your progress and your account

Some lessons and all reference tools can be used without an account. In that case your progress is linked to an anonymous identifier stored in your browser. If you clear your browser data, change device or use private browsing, that progress may no longer be available to you.

Other lessons require an account. To create one you give an email address and choose a password, or sign in with Google. Creating an account means you accept these terms, including the age requirement in section 4. You agree to give an email address that is yours, to keep your password secret and not to share your account. One person may hold one account. You are responsible for activity that takes place through your account or device, and you should tell us promptly if you believe someone else has gained access.

You can also create an account or sign in with Google, in which case Google confirms your email address to us. When you sign up with an email address and password we send a link to confirm the address. A forgotten password is reset through a link sent to the address on the account, so make sure it is one you can read. If an account was created with an address that was never confirmed and the owner of that address later signs in with Google, the account passes to them and its earlier password stops working.

You can delete your account, and everything stored with it, at any time in Settings. We aim to preserve your progress, but we do not guarantee that it will always be retained, and we may reset it where needed to fix errors or abuse.

7.Your license

As long as you follow these terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use the Service for your own learning, and not for commercial use or resale. For free features the license lasts until you or we end it under these terms. For a paid plan it lasts for the period you have paid for. The Service is licensed, not sold. All rights that are not expressly granted to you are reserved.

8.Acceptable use

You agree that you will not, and will not help anyone else to:

• copy, scrape, download in bulk, republish, sell, rent or otherwise redistribute any lesson, simulation, question, text, artwork or code from the Service;
• use any part of the Service to build a competing product, or to train or evaluate a machine-learning model;
• use bots, scripts or other automation to answer questions, earn scores or otherwise interact with the Service;
• manipulate, falsify or tamper with scores, progress, rankings or any other record;
• reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to extract the source code of the Service, except to the extent the law expressly allows this despite a contractual restriction;
• probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the Service, bypass any security or access control, or interfere with or disrupt the Service or its infrastructure;
• send malware, or place an unreasonable load on the Service;
• harass, threaten, defame or impersonate any person, or use a name that is offensive or misleading;
• use the Service in breach of any law, or to infringe the rights of others.

If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it privately to legal@hopfluent.com and give us a reasonable time to address it before disclosing it to anyone else.

9.Scores and game features

Packets, Hops, Uptime, TTL, rankings and similar features exist to make learning engaging. They have no monetary value, are not your property, cannot be sold, transferred or exchanged, and may be adjusted, reset or withdrawn by us at any time, including to correct errors or respond to cheating.

10.Content you provide

If the Service lets you provide content, such as a display name, you are responsible for it and confirm that you have the right to use it. You grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to host, display and use that content to operate the Service. We may remove or change content that we consider breaches these terms.

If you send us ideas, suggestions or other feedback, you agree that we may use them freely, without restriction and without owing you anything.

11.Intellectual property

The Service, including its lessons, simulations, questions, text, design, artwork, software and the Hopfluent name and marks, is owned by us or our licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. These terms do not transfer any ownership to you.

Technical standards and specifications referred to in the Service belong to the bodies that publish them. Other names and marks belong to their respective owners and are used only to describe or refer to them.

If you believe that material on the Service infringes your rights, write to legal@hopfluent.com identifying the material and explaining your claim. We will review it and, where appropriate, remove the material.

12.Independence from certification bodies

Hopfluent is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or approved by any certification body, examination provider, vendor or standards organization. The Service contains no actual examination questions. Any reference to a certification is descriptive only.

13.Education only

The Service is for general education. It explains how networks work using simplified models and examples. It is not professional, engineering, security or legal advice, and it is not a substitute for official documentation, vendor guidance, professional training or your own judgment.

We take care to make the content accurate and we cite our sources, but networking is a broad and changing subject, simplifications are sometimes necessary for teaching, and the content may contain errors or be out of date. Do not use the Service as the basis for designing, configuring, operating or securing a real system or network. Check authoritative sources and test your work.

We do not promise any particular outcome from using the Service, including passing an examination, gaining a qualification or certification, or obtaining employment. Scores and progress in the Service measure activity in the Service only.

14.Paid plans

This section applies when you buy a paid plan.

• Price and features. The price, billing period and what is included will be shown before you buy.
• Seller. Paid plans are sold through Dodo Payments, an online reseller acting as merchant of record. The reseller is the seller of the plan, takes payment, issues your receipt and handles applicable taxes, and its terms apply to the transaction alongside these terms. We may change reseller.
• Renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period, at the price then in effect, until cancelled. You can cancel at any time, and cancellation takes effect at the end of the period already paid for.
• Refunds. Except where the law gives you a right to a refund or to withdraw from a purchase, or where a refund policy shown at the time of purchase says otherwise, payments are not refundable and we do not provide refunds or credits for part-used periods.
• Changes. We may change prices or what a plan includes. A price change applies from your next billing period, and we will give you notice beforehand so that you can cancel.
• Taxes. Prices may be shown without taxes, which are added where they apply.

Features that are free today may become part of a paid plan in the future, and paid features may become free.

15.Availability and changes

We work to keep the Service available, but we do not promise that it will be uninterrupted, timely or free of errors, or that any content or progress will always be preserved. We may carry out maintenance and may change, add or remove features. For free features we may do this at any time.

If a change materially reduces a paid plan, or if we decide to close the Service, we will give paid subscribers at least 30 days notice where we reasonably can, and you may cancel and receive a refund for the unused part of the period you paid for.

Features described as beta, preview or experimental may be incomplete, may change or be withdrawn, and are used at your own risk.

16.Third-party services

The Service may link to, or rely on, websites and services operated by others. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, policies or availability. Your use of them is governed by their own terms.

17.Suspension and ending

You may stop using the Service at any time. You can delete your learning record in Settings. The Privacy Policy explains what other data is kept and for how long.

We may suspend or end your access immediately if we reasonably believe that you have seriously or repeatedly broken these terms, that your use puts the Service or other people at risk, or that the law requires it. For other breaches we will, where we can contact you, ask you to put things right first. If you think we made a mistake, write to hello@hopfluent.com and we will review the decision.

We may also end a free service, or your free access, for any reason. If we end a paid plan and you have not broken these terms, we will refund the unused part of the period you paid for. If we end it because of your breach, no refund is due unless the law requires one.

When access ends, your license ends. The sections of these terms that by their nature should continue after that, such as those on intellectual property, disclaimers, liability and disputes, continue to apply.

18.Disclaimer of warranties

To the extent the law allows, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", and we make no promises about it other than those set out in these terms. In particular we do not promise that it is fit for any particular purpose, complete, accurate or free of errors, and we exclude all warranties, conditions and representations that would otherwise be implied.

Some laws give consumers rights and guarantees that cannot be excluded, including guarantees about the quality of digital services. Nothing in these terms removes or limits those rights.

19.Limitation of liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, for gross negligence or intentional misconduct, or for anything else that the law does not allow to be limited.

Subject to that, and to the extent the law allows:

• we are liable only for loss that was a reasonably foreseeable result of our breach of these terms or our failure to use reasonable care;
• because the Service is licensed for personal learning, we are not liable for business losses such as lost profit, revenue, opportunity or goodwill, or for indirect or consequential loss;
• we are not liable for loss caused by events outside our reasonable control, by your reliance on content in the Service contrary to section 13, or by your breach of these terms;
• our total liability to you for all claims relating to the Service or these terms is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for the Service in the twelve months before the claim arose and fifty US dollars (USD 50).

If you are a consumer living in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the monetary limit in the last point above does not apply to you. Instead, for a breach caused by slight negligence, we are liable only where we breach an obligation that is essential to this agreement, and then only for loss that was foreseeable and typical for this kind of agreement. If you are a consumer in Australia, nothing in these terms limits your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

These limits reflect the fact that the Service is offered free of charge or at a low price.

20.Your responsibility to us

If someone else brings a claim against us because you deliberately or carelessly broke these terms, used the Service unlawfully or infringed their rights, you agree to compensate us for the reasonable losses and costs, including reasonable legal fees, that we incur as a direct result, except to the extent that we caused or contributed to them. We will tell you about the claim promptly and take reasonable steps to limit the loss.

If you are a consumer living in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland or Australia, this section does not apply to you, and your liability to us is whatever the law provides.

21.Governing law and disputes

Talk to us first. If you have a concern or a dispute, please contact legal@hopfluent.com and describe it. You and we agree to try in good faith to resolve it informally for at least 30 days before starting formal proceedings. This does not stop either of us from seeking urgent relief from a court, and any limitation period is paused while we talk.

If you are a consumer. These terms are governed by the law of the country, state or province where you live, and any claim by you or by us may be brought in the courts there.

If you use the Service in the course of a business. These terms are governed by the law of the place where the operator is established, and the courts of that place have exclusive jurisdiction. We confirm that place in writing on request before any claim is brought.

Individual claims only. To the extent the law allows, you and we agree that each may bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity, and not as a claimant or member of any class, collective or representative proceeding. This paragraph does not apply where the law gives you a right to take part in such proceedings that cannot be waived.

Time limit. To the extent the law allows, any claim relating to the Service or these terms must be started within one year after you first knew, or should reasonably have known, of the facts giving rise to it. This paragraph does not apply if you are a consumer living in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland or Australia, or in any other place where the law does not allow the limitation period to be shortened. In those places the period set by law applies.

22.Changes to these terms

We may change these terms for a valid reason: to reflect changes in the law, to describe new or changed features, to address security or abuse, or to make the terms clearer. The current version is always on this page with its effective date.

If a change materially reduces your rights or increases your obligations, we will give at least 30 days notice before it takes effect, on the Service and by email if you have an account. Changes that are required by law, that fix an urgent security problem or that only add features may take effect sooner.

If you do not agree to a change, you may stop using the Service and, if you have a paid plan, cancel before the change takes effect and receive a refund for the unused part of the period you paid for. Using the Service after a change takes effect means you accept it. Changes never apply to a dispute that arose before they took effect.

23.General

• Whole agreement. These terms, together with the documents they refer to, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service and replace any earlier understanding.
• Severability. If any part of these terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, that part applies to the greatest extent permitted and the rest remains in full effect.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a right or provision, that is not a waiver of it.
• Transfer. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these terms. We may transfer ours, including to a successor to the Service, provided your rights are not reduced.
• Events outside our control. We are not responsible for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
• No third-party rights. These terms do not give rights to anyone other than you and us.
• Export and sanctions. You may not use the Service if you are subject to trade sanctions or located in a place where such use is prohibited, and you must comply with the export and sanctions laws that apply to you.
• Notices. We may give you notices under these terms by email to the address on your account, or on the Service if you have no account. You agree to receive agreements, notices and receipts from us in electronic form. Notices to us must be sent to legal@hopfluent.com and take effect when we receive them.
• Language. These terms are written in English. If they are translated, the English version prevails to the extent permitted by law.

24.Contact

Questions about these terms can be sent to legal@hopfluent.com.