FairScan's purpose

September 28, 2025

I just published the first version of FairScan and I'm starting this blog to share my experience developing this project. This first post is about the vision behind FairScan: what I'm trying to achieve, and what I'm not aiming for.

I started FairScan to fill a need I have, and one that many people share: every now and then I have to turn a piece of paper into a PDF. Of course, there are many apps that do this, and a lot of them are free. But "free" often means I end up paying in other ways, by giving away my data or being exposed to ads. And most of these apps are bloated with features I don't need.

FairScan is my attempt to build something different: simple (getting a PDF in seconds, without effort) and respectful (no ads, no account, no tricks). It doesn't try to do everything, but it focuses on doing its job well.

A simple app to get a scan in seconds

I don't want to spend time using a document scanning app: I want to get a PDF quickly (around 10 seconds for a single page) and without effort. That's what I mean by "simple".

Automatic processing

I want to use my phone as a camera, but instead of a raw photo of a document, I want a PDF that looks good enough to share. FairScan takes care of the tedious work for me:

• Detect document edges
• Fix perspective
• Enhance colors, brightness and contrast
• Reduce shadows
• Compress the PDF to keep it light

FairScan does all this automatically. Results may not be perfect in every case, but the goal is to get PDFs that look "good enough" most of the time, with zero effort from the user. Achieving that is far from simple for the developer, but it makes the experience truly simple for the user.

Clear interface and scanning process

Of course, the user interface also plays a key role in keeping the app simple. Automation makes it possible to remove buttons for tweaking documents, which keeps the UI clean. And since there are no ads or messages pushing you to upgrade to a premium version, there's no wasted space or distraction.

The scanning process itself is designed to be crystal clear, even for multi-page documents:

1. Scan the pages
2. Preview the result
3. Save or share the PDF

The result is an interface and workflow that stay focused on one thing: getting a PDF quickly and without distraction.

An app that respects its users

I would like all the apps I use to be respectful. I'll try to define more generally what a "respectful app" means in a dedicated post. In short, I think it's about putting users' interests first. In the context of a document scanner, it's really about what I don't want to have.

No account, no cloud. Big companies happily offer to store my scans on their cloud. But some of the documents I scan are definitely private data and I don't want to give that to Big Tech. I want to keep control of my data.

No ads. Ads have much more impact that most people realize, they shape how we behave individually and as a society. Plus, they're annoying. I hate ads.

No trackers. Almost all apps include trackers, but I don't want to be tracked. Check your apps.

No weird permission. I don't get why a scanning app would need dozens of permissions. I don't want it to access my location or to record audio with my phone.

No artificial limitations of any kind. I tried many "free" scanning apps. Sometimes, I got a message saying that I need the premium version to scan more than 3 pages. In another app, the PDF I got had "Scanned with FreeApp" on every page. In yet another one, I could share the PDF only if it was by email.

All of that is code that was intentionally added to the app. So, if an app is open-source, it's usually easy for someone to remove that kind of code and publish a similar app. That makes open-source apps much more likely to be respectful.

FairScan is open-source: you can review its code and check that it's as respectful as it should.

What FairScan is not

In addition to the "anti-features" I just listed, there are features that I see in a lot of document scanning apps, and that I think I don't want for FairScan. I believe it can be helpful to list them to clarify FairScan's scope.

Not a storage app

FairScan is not about storing documents and keeping them safe. I don't want FairScan to take that responsibility. FairScan keeps data only for the current document being scanned. At the end of the scanning process, the user exports a PDF by storing it in the device's Download directory or by sharing it with any app installed on the device. After a click on "End Scan", FairScan deletes the images it captured. It's then up to the user to keep the PDF safe.

Not an app to tweak PDFs

If FairScan gets adopted by many people, some will probably ask for options to adjust the page contrast or the PDF compression level. But that's not the direction I want to take. Once you open the door to manual tweaks, where do you stop? It goes against the idea of a simple app. More importantly, I believe it would discourage feedback and progress on automatic processing. Instead, I'd much rather invest development time in making the automatic pipeline smarter, so that everyone gets better PDFs without extra effort. That's the choice I make for FairScan.

That's the idea behind FairScan: a document scanner that is simple, respectful, and focused on doing its job well. It's already available on the Play Store and F-Droid, and I'm committed to improving it while keeping true to this vision. I hope this post helps explain why FairScan exists and what I'm trying to achieve, and I look forward to sharing more about the project and its context here on the blog.