Privacy policy

Nothing. The app has no account and does not ask who you are. We do not collect, store or receive:

• your name, email address, phone number or any other contact detail
• your DNS lookups, the websites you visit or the apps you use
• your IP address or your location
• analytics or usage data
• advertising data or advertising identifiers
• crash reports or diagnostics
• device or installation identifiers

We operate no servers for this app, so there is nowhere for such data to be sent. Because we collect nothing, we have nothing to sell or share: we do not sell data, we do not disclose it to third parties, and we do not use it for advertising, profiling or any other purpose.

iOS and Android only let an app change the DNS resolver for the whole phone through the system’s VPN mechanism. DNS Switcher therefore adds a VPN profile to your phone (on Android through the system’s VpnService; on iPhone as a VPN configuration with an on-device network extension). Your phone asks for your permission the first time you switch on, and the profile is in use only while the switch is on.

This profile is local and DNS-only:

• There is no remote VPN server. Nothing is tunnelled to us or to anyone else.
• It does not route, inspect, filter, log or proxy your internet traffic. Web pages, app data and messages keep travelling directly over your Wi-Fi or mobile network, exactly as they did before.
• Its only job is to tell the system which DNS resolver to use.
• It does not encrypt anything, and it does not hide your IP address. It is not a privacy, security or anonymity tool.

On Android, the system then sends your DNS lookups directly to the resolver you chose. On iPhone, the system hands each DNS lookup to a small part of the app that runs on your phone, which passes it on unchanged to the resolver you chose and returns the answer. In both cases lookups are handled in memory on your device only. They are never recorded and never sent to us.

To answer a DNS lookup, a resolver has to see the name being looked up and the IP address the request comes from. That is true of every DNS resolver, including the one your network gives you by default. While DNS Switcher is on, the resolver is the one you selected, and it handles your lookups under its own privacy policy:

• Cloudflare (1.1.1.1): Cloudflare’s privacy policy for its public DNS resolver.
• Google (8.8.8.8): Google Public DNS privacy policy.
• A custom server: whoever operates the server you entered. Check their policy before you use it.

We do not operate these services, have no control over what they log, and are not affiliated with them. DNS Switcher does not encrypt your lookups: it uses ordinary DNS, so the networks between your phone and the resolver (your Wi-Fi operator, mobile carrier or internet provider) can generally see them too, as they can without the app.

One exception is outside the app’s control. On Android, when the phone’s own Private DNS setting is on Automatic, Android may by itself encrypt lookups to a resolver that supports it. That is Android’s behaviour, not a feature of DNS Switcher, and we make no promise about it.

DNS Switcher only runs on its latest version, so the app checks whether a newer one is available. These version checks are the only network requests the app itself makes:

• On iPhone, the app asks Apple’s public App Store lookup service for the current version of DNS Switcher. The request names the app and the country of your App Store, and nothing else: no account, no identifier and no cookie.
• On Android, the app uses Google Play’s in-app update service, which is provided by the Google Play Store app on your phone.

After you have used the app for a few days it may show the standard prompt asking you to rate it. That prompt is displayed by Apple or by Google Play, not by us. We are not told whether you saw it or what you did with it; we only see ratings and reviews that you choose to publish in the store.

These requests go to Apple or Google, not to us. Like any internet request, they carry your IP address and basic technical details, and they are handled under Apple’s Privacy Policy or Google’s Privacy Policy. The App Store and Google Play also keep their own records when you download or update an app, and may show developers aggregate statistics such as download counts, depending on the sharing settings on your device. Those are covered by their policies, and they do not identify you to us.

The app keeps a few settings on your device so it can work:

• the provider you selected
• your custom DNS entry, if you added one (its name and server addresses)
• whether you left the switch on or off
• small counters and dates used for the version check and to decide when to show the rating prompt

These settings stay on your phone and we cannot read them. If you back up your iPhone to iCloud or to a computer, that backup may include the app’s settings; it is your backup, and we have no access to it. The Android app is excluded from Google’s device backup. Deleting the app removes its settings and its VPN profile.

• VPN configuration (iPhone and Android): needed to change the DNS resolver, as described above. You can remove it at any time in your phone’s settings.
• Notifications (Android, optional): while the switch is on, the app shows an ongoing notification with a “Turn off” button. The app works the same if you decline.

On Android the app also holds a few permissions that the system grants without asking: to keep the VPN profile running as a foreground service, to switch DNS back on after the phone restarts if you left it on, and to read the state of the network connection, including whether Android’s Private DNS setting is on, so that it can warn you when the two conflict. None of them gives access to personal data.

The app does not ask for your location, contacts, photos, camera, microphone or tracking permission.

If you email us for support, we receive your email address and whatever you choose to include in your message. We use that only to answer you and to keep a record of the conversation, and we do not add you to any mailing list. You can ask us to delete the correspondence at any time.

The app sends us nothing, so we hold no app data about you: there is nothing for us to keep, and nothing for us to delete. The settings listed above exist only on your phone, and deleting the app removes them.

Support emails are the one thing we do hold. We keep them for as long as we need them to deal with your question and to keep a record of it, and we delete them when you ask us to.

DNS Switcher is a general-purpose utility and is not directed at children. It does not collect personal information from anyone, including children.

Privacy laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA give you rights over personal data that a company holds about you. Because the app gives us no personal data, there is nothing for us to provide, correct, export or delete. If you have emailed us, you can ask for a copy of that correspondence or for it to be deleted, using the contact details below.

If the app changes in a way that affects this policy, we will update this page and its effective date. If a future version were ever to collect data, we would say so clearly here and on the app’s store listings before that version was released.

Bit Microsystems LLC, Wyoming, USA. Email: [email protected]. For help using the app, see the support page.