my apologies for the long screenshot. i had purchased adguard’s vpn service for five years since its primary adguard service is well know in the iapple ecosystem.
on android, though, their app appears to send data to a lot of third-parties. has it always been this compromised? am i a fool to go for their vpn services as well?
Selling? Probably not.
But I used NetGuard to see specific requests that the AdGuard VPN app made. Then I downloaded AdGuard VPN and opened it. Without even logging in, it pinged:
- dns.google
- dns.alidns.com (Alibaba)
- 2400:3200:baba::1 (Alibaba again)
- cloudflare-dns.com
I don’t know why it feels the need to ping so many DNS servers before you even type a username, but it does.
After installing AdguardVPN and testing it against Exodus this is what I got:
would you have done this with the ad guard vpn deactivated but the app still running in the background?
I’ve been using the app for a few montha now and it’s only today that it got flagged in the DDG report. it’s not shown up before.
Hey I gave it a second try with another tool: PCAPdroid and I’m not sure what I’m looking at … Adguard VPN seems effectively to send a lot of traffic to strange DNS requests…
Just by opening the app and loggin in a fake account I got over 200 requests…
I’m not an expert but those requests seem sketchy !!!
So at this point you’re still not connecting the VPN or anything? This is just after you log in?
Yes :) just after I login ! PCAPdroid doesn’t allow a VPN connection.
wow. this is good detail, indeed!
so is this an app one should avoid using, then?
I would say Yes. If you are on android give PCAPdroid a try and see it by yourself.
Are there any nonmalicoius reasons why adguard would be dialing into ad servers? My first thought it that you gotta know who the advertisers are to block em, but I’m not familiar with adguard as a vpn or a browser side blocker.
yes, that’s my question too.
From what I see, your screenshot tells what adguardVPN blocked. Each app shown in adguardVPN seems to send a lot of things.Maybe time to switch to alternatives if you are concerned about telemetry and personal data?My bad, see answer below !
Any possibility that these are apps or sites that you use while using that VPN? And maybe DDG is also blocking it? I don’t use any of that stuff so I’m just taking a guess.
i can see where you’re going with this but, no, these are not sites that i’ve visited. for example, my country has its own amazon domain and verizon does not operate where i live.
nope, this is all the adguard vpn android app on its own.
Users like this is exactly why you don’t need a VPN; you clearly have no understanding of how they work.
thanks for the feedback. i would be happy to hear what I’m presuming incorrectly here. always willing to learn and gain an understanding of how things do work.
You’re wrong.
