FAQs

What Blue Guard collects, what it costs, where it works, and what to do when a site misbehaves. If something here is not covered, the support page reaches a person.

Does Blue Guard collect my browsing data?
No. There are no accounts, no analytics and no systemBlue servers, so there is no destination your data could be sent to. The blocking is performed by Safari against a rule list, so Blue Guard is not consulted as you browse and never learns which pages you opened. The privacy policy lists everything the app stores.
What does Blue Guard cost?
Nothing. Blue Guard is free in full: no trial period, no paid tier, and no feature held back. The app includes an optional tip jar for anyone who wants to support its development. A tip unlocks nothing, because nothing is locked.
Is Blue Guard a VPN?
No. It carries none of your traffic, hides no addresses, and connects to no systemBlue server, because systemBlue operates none. It hands Safari a list of rules and Safari does the rest, on your iPhone. Turning on app-wide blocking does ask iOS for a VPN configuration, because a packet tunnel is the only way iOS lets an app filter domain lookups. Your traffic still goes where it always went, and none of it reaches systemBlue.
What is app-wide blocking?
A filter that refuses tracker domains in every app, not only in Safari. It is included at no cost, arrives switched off, and is turned on from Blue Guard’s Settings screen. Lookups it does not block are passed to Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) and Quad9 (9.9.9.9) over an encrypted connection so they can be answered. The privacy policy sets out exactly what each resolver receives.
Why do I have to switch it on in Settings?
Because iOS requires it. A content blocker can only be enabled by you, in the Settings app, and no app is permitted to do it on your behalf. It is a one-time trip.
Will it break websites?
Occasionally, yes. Any blocker that is actually doing something will sometimes stop a script a site depends on. That is what the allowlist is for: add the offending site and Blue Guard leaves it alone from then on, without you having to switch anything off everywhere else.
Does it work in other browsers and apps?
Partly. Safari blocking covers Safari only, because iOS does not let one app reach inside another to remove page elements. App-wide blocking works differently: it filters domain lookups system-wide, so known ad and tracker domains are refused in other browsers and apps too. What it cannot do is strip an advert that an app serves from its own domain.