HMM: Introducing Guardian Firewall for iOS.
This is from the developer’s press release:
Starting over 2 years ago, we embarked on an ambitious mission: Build a tool that allows any electronic device owner in the world to take back control of their digital privacy. This tool needed to be incredibly easy to use, straightforward, and must allow a user to “set it and forget it” if they did not want to apply any customizations.
We could have cut plenty of corners and shipped an acceptable tool. Instead we took our time and did things right, putting together the most powerful tool and dataset we were capable of building. Why? Because we are working towards a broader set of goals: Make surveillance capitalism an untenable business model. [Emphasis added] Degrade the quality of shadow profiles maintained on every user of an internet connected device. Methodically expose every bad actor we can find. The electronic devices you bought and own should not be snitching on you at regular intervals. Something has gone very wrong, and the course must be corrected to prevent pervasive data collection from becoming an acceptable norm. It’s time for war. No stone will be left unturned.
Thousands of hours and a 5 month back-and-forth with Apple’s App Review team later, this mission has resulted in our creation of the first real firewall for iOS devices. Managed by a unique dataset that is the result of our continuous and exhaustive in-house research, Guardian Firewall updates instantaneously as we discover new threats to ensure that you don’t have to do any work at all. We will find threats before they can find you.
They promise continuing updates through the life of the company, presumably to block new snoops and the inevitable workarounds.
The company says their model allows for “easily portability” to other platforms, so I’d expect an Android version to follow sometime after the full iOS rollout next month.
At $9.99 a month ($99.99/year), Guardian Firewall isn’t cheap — about the top price even the best VPNs charge. But if their service does what they say, this is much more than just another VPN. I’ll test it out for a month after it goes public and report back.