How it works

Why an app like this needs VPN permission

Android gives an app one way to see the lookups that turn a website name into an address before they leave the device, and that is the VPN permission. B-Simple uses it to answer those lookups on the phone.

When you visit a site, your phone asks for its address. B-Simple checks that name against your own block list, on your device. If you have blocked it, the app answers "not found" locally and the lookup never leaves the phone. If you have not, it is passed to the same servers your phone would have used anyway.

No traffic is routed anywhere. Nothing you browse is collected, stored or sent. The privacy policy says the same thing at length.

Watch it work

This is the recording submitted to Google Play with the app's VpnService declaration. It shows first run, the Android permission prompt, a site being added to the block list, and that site then failing to load.

There is no sound. The browser reports a DNS error rather than a network error, and that difference is the whole point: the lookup was answered on the device, and nothing was sent.

What this won't block

Blocking works by domain name, so it cannot block a single page or a site reached by a raw IP address. A browser using its own secure DNS will bypass it. Android allows one VPN at a time, so B-Simple cannot run alongside another. No list catches everything.

Uninstalling is never obstructed, paid or not.