Privacy Policy

The short version

There is no account, no sign-up, and no Pterobit server for the app to talk to. Your rules are stored on your device. DNS lookups are answered on your device. Nothing about what you look up, browse, or run is transmitted to us, and we have built no way to receive it.

In App Store terms, this app's privacy label is Data Not Collected.

Who this covers

This policy applies to the etc/hosts iOS app and to this website, etchosts.pterobit.com. Both are operated by Pterobit. You can reach us at support@pterobit.com.

What the app stores, and where

Everything the app keeps lives on your device, in the app's own storage and in the VPN configuration the app installs on your behalf:

• Your rules — the domains you enter, the destinations you point them at, which matching mode each uses, and whether each is switched on.
• App settings — small preferences such as whether the tunnel should be running.
• Your purchase status — whether a Pro subscription or the lifetime purchase is active, as reported to the app by the App Store.

A copy of your rules is placed in the VPN profile's configuration so the network extension can apply them. That profile is held by iOS on your device. It is not sent anywhere.

Deleting the app removes this data. Removing the VPN configuration in Settings › General › VPN & Device Management removes the copy iOS holds.

DNS lookups and the VPN profile

This is the part worth reading carefully, because the app installs a VPN profile and that normally implies a great deal.

iOS only lets an app answer DNS lookups through a VPN profile — it is the only mechanism available. The profile etc/hosts installs points at a DNS server address that exists only inside the tunnel, and it is scoped to the domains in your rules. Lookups for any other name never enter the tunnel at all: they go to your device's normal resolver over its normal network path, exactly as if the app were not installed.

No web, app, or other traffic is routed through the tunnel.

When a lookup for one of your domains does arrive, the extension answers it from your rule. Some lookups within your scoped domains are ones the extension does not answer itself — for example a name that matched the scope but has no rule. Those are forwarded to the DNS resolvers your device was already using, discovered from the active network. Those resolvers are whoever they already were: your home router, your carrier, your employer, or a resolver you configured. They see those queries the same way they would have without this app, and they handle them under their own policies. We do not add a resolver, redirect queries to one of our choosing, or receive a copy.

Once a lookup is answered, the connection your browser makes is an ordinary direct one. It does not pass through the app, the extension, or us.

Recent Lookups

The app shows a list of the lookups that reached the extension, so you can tell whether a rule is working. That list is held in the extension's memory only. It is capped at the 200 most recent entries, it is discarded when the tunnel stops, and it is never written to disk, backed up, or transmitted. It is visible only to you, in the app.

Local network access

When you choose a destination on your own network, the app looks for HTTP and HTTPS services advertised over Bonjour so you can pick one by name instead of hunting for an IP address. It may also open a TCP connection to a destination you entered to tell you whether it is reachable.

iOS asks for your permission before any of this happens. What is found stays on your device and is shown only to you. We receive no inventory of your network, and none is stored beyond the moment you are choosing a destination.

Purchases

Subscriptions and the lifetime purchase are processed entirely by Apple through the App Store. We never see or handle your payment details, and we do not receive your name, email address, or Apple Account identifier. The app asks StoreKit whether a purchase is active and shows you Pro features accordingly; that answer stays on the device.

Apple provides us with aggregated, anonymised sales and subscription reports — totals by product and territory, with no identification of individual purchasers. Apple's own handling of your purchase is governed by Apple's Privacy Policy.

Crash reports and analytics

The app contains no analytics, no advertising, no attribution or tracking SDKs, and no third-party code that reports on you. We do not use cookies or identifiers for advertising, and nothing in this app tracks you across other apps or websites.

iOS itself may offer to share crash and performance diagnostics with developers, under Settings › Privacy & Security › Analytics & Improvements. If — and only if — you have turned that on, Apple may make crash logs from this app available to us through App Store Connect. Those reports come from Apple, are about the app's own execution, and do not contain your rules, your lookups, or your traffic. You can turn that setting off at any time.

This website

This site is a set of static files. It sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and loads no fonts, scripts, images, or embeds from any third-party host, so visiting it does not report your visit to anyone else.

It is served by Cloudflare Pages, which — like any web server — processes the request data needed to deliver a page and keep the service secure, including IP address and browser user agent. We do not use that data to build profiles, and we do not combine it with anything else. If you email us, we hold your message so we can reply to it.

Children

This is a developer tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children under 13.

Your rights

Privacy laws including the GDPR and the CCPA give you rights to access, correct, export, and delete the personal information a company holds about you, and not to have it sold. We hold none, so there is nothing for us to disclose, correct, export, or delete — and nothing to sell. We have never sold or shared personal information, because we have never had any.

The data the app does hold is on your device and under your control: edit or delete rules in the app, remove the VPN configuration in iOS Settings, or delete the app to remove all of it.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version will be posted here with a new date at the top of the page. Material changes will be described rather than folded in silently.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or about anything the app does, go to support@pterobit.com.