Privacy Policy

In short: Fend does not collect your data. There are no accounts, we run no servers, and your DNS queries never reach us.

Last updated: 2026-10-15

What we collect

Nothing. Fend has no server, so there is no address the app could send anything to. None of the following reaches us:

• Your DNS queries, the domains you visit, your browsing history
• Your IP address or location
• Name, email, phone number or any account detail
• Device identifiers, usage statistics, crash reports or analytics

The app contains no analytics, tracking or crash reporting library. Fend is derived from an upstream project that included them, and all of it was removed.

What stays on your device

A few settings the app needs in order to work are kept in your device's own private storage. They never leave the device, are not backed up to us, and are deleted when you uninstall the app.

What	Why
The DNS server you chose	So the app knows which server to use when you connect
Whether blocking is on, and your exception list	To remember your preference
Daily counters: requests blocked, bytes through the tunnel	To draw the statistics screen and the home screen widget

The counters are totals only: which domain was blocked, or which site you visited, is never recorded anywhere, not even on your device.

Where your DNS queries go

Fend encrypts your device's DNS queries and sends them to the public DNS provider you choose. We are not in the middle; the query goes straight to that provider.

That provider sees your queries and its own privacy policy applies. You can change your choice at any time from inside the app:

• Cloudflare
• Google Public DNS
• Quad9
• AdGuard DNS
• Yandex DNS
• If you entered your own address: that provider's policy

Ad and tracker blocking

The blocklist ships inside the app and runs entirely on your device. No query leaves the device in order to decide whether a domain should be blocked. A blocked request never reaches the network at all; it is answered on your device.

Why the VPN permission is needed

On Android, setting up a VPN interface is the only way an app can see the device's DNS traffic. Fend uses the permission for that and nothing else.

Your traffic is not tunnelled to a remote server. Unlike a conventional VPN service, Fend has no server to relay through: only DNS queries are encrypted and sent to the provider you chose, and all other traffic goes straight to its destination as usual.

Advertising

The free version of the app shows ads served by Google AdMob. This is the one point of data collection in this policy, and it is the ad provider collecting it, not us. The ad component typically accesses:

• Your advertising identifier (Android Advertising ID)
• Device and operating system details, and your IP address to approximate location
• Your interaction with the ad (impressions, clicks)

See the Google AdMob advertising policy for details. You can turn off personalisation or reset your advertising ID in your device settings: Settings → Privacy → Ads. The paid version shows no ads.

Consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the app asks for your consent through Google's consent form before it starts requesting ads, and the legal basis for that processing is your consent. If you decline, any ads shown are not personalised and Google limits the data it uses for them; its policy, linked above, has the details.

You can change or withdraw your choice at any time, as easily as you made it, under About → Ad privacy choices in the app. Withdrawing does not affect processing that took place before. The ad provider may process this data outside your country, including in the United States, under its own safeguards, and keeps it for as long as its policy says. Fend itself stores none of it.

Your DNS queries and blocking data are not shared with the ad provider; we do not have them in the first place.

Permissions

Permission	What for
VPN service	To capture and encrypt DNS queries
Internet, network state	To reach the chosen DNS provider and notice network changes
Foreground service	To show the persistent notification while protection is on
Start at boot	To resume protection after a restart if you left it on

No contacts, location, camera, microphone, files or installed-app-list permission is requested.

Children

Fend is not directed at children and asks for no age or other personal information. Fend itself collects no personal data. The one collection in the app is the ad component in the free version, described under Advertising, and it works the same way for every user.

Your rights

Regulations such as the GDPR and Türkiye's KVKK give you the right to access, correct and erase data held about you. Fend holds no data about you, so there is no record for us to act on. To clear the settings and counters on your device, uninstall the app or clear its data from your system settings.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. In Türkiye that is the Personal Data Protection Authority (KVKK); in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, the authority of the country you live in.

Changes to this policy

If the app's behaviour changes, this page is updated and the date above is refreshed. Any change that widens data processing will also be announced inside the app.

Contact

support@getfend.app