Frequently Asked Questions

STRICH relies only on baseline browser technologies, and has zero dependencies. This makes STRICH very easy to integrate into existing apps and by definition compatible with all web frameworks.

STRICH is German for stroke: [ʃtrɪç]. Here's how it's pronounced:   Play sound

Barcodes are made of strokes. I thought it was clever. In hindsight, it was probably not the best idea.

You can try our demo app, which is built using STRICH. If the demo app can scan your barcodes, then so will your app.

If you're trying to scan a 1D barcode that is either very short or very long, and the demo app can't read it, it might be a configuration issue. The demo app is parameterized to read commonly occurring barcodes but not edge cases. Contact us and include a sample image of your barcode, and we'll be happy to have a look.

We also have a list of supported barcode types, and documentation for all symbologies.

Yes, updates are included in your subscription. We encourage you to always update to the most recent SDK version to profit from new features, bugfixes and performance improvements.

Please refer to the Release Notes for detailed information on the content of recent releases.

No, the the number of devices is not limited. Usage-based licenses (STRICH Basic, STRICH Professional) include a fixed monthly quota of scans, but not devices.

It is actually technically impossible to accurately track devices, as browser privacy mechanisms explicitly prevent uniquely identifying a device.

This is a Chrome feature called User-agent reduction in Chrome 110 and upwards, designed to preserve user privacy. These browser versions no longer include a device model or platform version, and instead just send the value "K" as device model, and "Android 10" as platform.

To see detailed device model names in the usage statistics, your app needs to be configured to request Client Hints and delegate them to the STRICH service. Please refer to the Deployment Guide for detailed instructions on how to accomplish this.

Yes, exporting scan data as CSV is supported. You find the export function in the Customer Portal under "Usage".

On iOS versions prior to iOS 13, this was a limitation of Safari. Starting with iOS 13 it's possible to disable the popup on a per-website basis, but the browser will only remember the decision for a few days, after which it will ask again.

Please refer to this Stackoverflow discussion for further details. Unfortunately, for installed apps (PWA), there is currently no workaround.

Current Chrome versions prior to 118 have a known issue on devices running Android 9 with Mali GPUs. This is a bug in the Chrome engine and we hope Google fixes it soon.

There is no workaround for this bug and other scanning products suffer from the same limitation. Note that this is purely a display issue, barcodes can still be scanned.

Safari on iOS versions prior to 18 has a bug in its WebAssembly loader that causes an "Out of Memory" error. The error causes STRICH's initialization to fail and causes an error message in the Safari browser console:

Recent SDK versions request less memory on initialization and trigger the bug less frequently. The issue occurs sporadically and sometimes can only be cleared by closing and reopening the browser tab.

The bug was fixed with iOS 18.

The trial period is free. You will not be billed for the duration of the trial. Your subscription will not convert into a paid subscription if you cancel it before the trial ends. The reason we ask for a credit card is to validate your legitimate interest in our product and prevent abuse of trial licenses.

We use a soft quota, we do not block scans. We know how disruptive a scanner that doesn't work can be.

If the number of scans exceeds your subscription license's quota for two consecutive months, we will still not block you, but we will contact you to upgrade to a higher plan for the following billing period. You can decide to continue with a higher plan or to cancel your subscription license at that point.

Yes, scans from non-production environments count towards the scanning quota. We have no way of determining if your system is a production system or not.

Your license keys remain valid until the end of the billing period for which you were billed.

Paddle is our Merchant of Record. We decided early on to focus completely on our core product and outsource subscription management, billing and tax compliance to an external partner. We prefer to work on our scanning SDK instead of dealing with all the thorny issues around taxes and subscription management, and we have absolutely no interesting in handling your sensitive payment data.

Paddle, our Merchant of Record, supports many countries, check their list of supported countries.

No, we do not offer PPP discounts.

No, we currently do not support invoicing for Basic and Professional plans.

We offer invoicing for our STRICH Business and STRICH Enterprise licenses, which are billed annually.

No, we currently do not support annual billing for Basic and Professional plans, but we are working on it.

We believe the web is a very dynamic platform and any software running on it will require regular updates. We are also committed to continuously improve our software, as we are quite fond of it. We do not offer lifetime licenses at the moment.

Yes, we offer discounts for startups.

You may qualify for a discount if you meet the following requirements:
- Under 500K USD annual revenue
- Bootstrapped or under 1M USD in funding
- Less than 5 years old
- 5 or fewer employees
- Not an existing customer

If you think you qualify, please contact us directly. Applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis and may be denied without giving a reason.

Yes, we offer discounts for NGOs and registered charities.

If you think you qualify, please contact us directly and include relevant documentation, such as your charity registration documents.

Applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis and may be denied without giving a reason.

Data is transmitted by the SDK to our servers for two reasons:

• License verification
• Usage tracking

During license verification the SDK transmits (in addition to the key itself) a number of non-identifying characteristics of the client, such as the operating system (e.g. Android), browser (e.g. Chrome 109), the origin URL (for scope verification) and the SDK version used.

For usage tracking purposes, the SDK periodically transmits the number of scans and the types of barcodes that were scanned. The values encoded in the barcodes are not sent.

All data is protected during transit via industry-standard TLS connections. Browser vendors work hard to prevent leaking personal or device-identifying data, so even if we wanted your data (which we do not), it would be difficult if not impossible to get.

The SDK does not transmit any data to third parties.

If you need a nice PDF to show to your Security Officer, here's our SDK Privacy and Security Statement.

Completely offline operation, with the SDK sending absolutely nothing via the internet, is available as an optional add-on for STRICH Business and STRICH Enterprise licenses. Please contact us if you require this capability.