Frequently Asked Questions

How is Sentrie different than a VPN?

A Virtual Private Network (“VPN”) is a networking service that redirects both your internet access transactions (DNS process) as well as your actual traffic through an intermediary server. To the services you are connected with, your “address” appears as the address of the intermediary server, not your actual address. That intermediary server then transfers the traffic to and from your device without telling the service at the other end of the connection your actual address. This has several benefits in that it keep you anonymous from the end-service and, if your VPN server is located in a different country, you usually will have access to that country’s content (such as certain Netflix programs) that may not be available in the country where you actually are located.

However, VPN services have several disadvantages, too. They do not keep advertising, viruses, many tracking services, ransomware, or phishing schemes from access to your device like Sentrie does. Also, they commonly slow down your Internet speeds because all your traffic must first be sent and received from the intermediary server and then to and from the end service. This extra step causes additional delays. And, many popular websites, including many major online shopping sites, are aware of VPN addresses and will not let you connect to their website if you’re using a VPN because of the higher risk of fraud when the consumer device is made anonymous.

 Sentrie operates on a completely different approach. We do not redirect your traffic to a third-party intermediary server and we do not change the address that the end service sees for your connection. We simply filter requests that your device sends so that we do not allow you to access known “badware” sites like those that would deliver viruses, ransomware, phishing, tracking or advertising traffic to your device.

Can I see a list of the sites that Sentrie blocked on my device?

Absolutely! You may be amazed at how many times your mobile device attempts to access known tracking, phishing, malware, and advertising sites, even when you are not using the device to access web pages or other Internet traffic. Simply tap on the little settings menu in the upper lefthand corner of your main Sentrie screen (sometimes referred to as the “hamburger menu” because the three stacked lines look like a hamburger stack). Then select the “System Details” option, and check the box called “Show recent queries” in the lower part of that screen. You may have to wait a few seconds to see any traffic flow. Or, you can just exit out of that screen and access some app or webpage from your mobile device and then come back to this screen to see all the queries that your device made. Any addresses that were queried and have a flag next to them were allowed queries. Any entries in this list that do not have a flag beside it were blocked by our system. The ratio of the “blocked accesses” to the total accesses requested in what we display on your main Sentrie screen as “traffic averted”.

Does Sentrie stop all ads from coming to my phone?

The vast majority of advertisements that come to your device are sourced from specific online advertising services and these are blocked well by the Sentrie technology. However, some advertisements are integrated into a webpage and Sentrie cannot filter these kinds of ads. We think you’ll find that the vast majority of advertisements are stopped and never show up on your device.

Is it legal to block ads being sent to me?

You have a legal right to control what traffic comes to your device and this has been confirmed with legal cases tested around the world. As long as your device does not alter the way an advertising-based app or website operates, you have a legal right to keep unwanted, undesired traffic from being delivered to your device. Sentrie does not alter these operations at all.

There are some cases with certain subscription-based online services that the terms you agreed with when you signed up for the subscription prohibit you from filtering ads they sent to you. However, these are special cases and are not the norm.

Isn’t Sentrie just like any other ad-blocking service?

Without going into the details of the Sentrie technology, Sentrie is not actually an “ad blocking” service. Typical ad-blocking services examine traffic that is delivered to your device and decide if it is an advertisement to be blocked. Sentrie works differently. We take a look at the requests for traffic that your device makes when it accesses the Internet and, if we see your device try to connect with a known-bad site that would deliver traffic that you probably don’t want, we stop the request from ever getting sent to the “badware” site. In other words, we don’t block the traffic they would have sent to you… we stop the request for traffic from ever getting sent to them. It’s as though your device is turned off as far as the other service is concerned.

Why do I have to pay for this?

The development and constant management of the Sentrie service and our huge database of sites that we block access to takes time and money, as does any app out there. Many apps, including ones that say they offer some of the benefits that Sentrie does, pay for their expenses through “secondary” income streams sometimes including tracking you and delivering ads to you. This seems like a complete double standard to us. So, we charge a small subscription fee for our service and we NEVER track you in any way and we don’t alter or add to your Internet traffic in any way.

We believe that, for many users, the cost savings in your cellular data usage more than compensates for our small monthly subscription fee. And, even for those who are on unlimited cellular data plans, we believe that getting rid of the ever-increasing number of advertisements sent to us and the result of speeding up webpage downloading speeds by as much as 10 times is worth a couple of dollars or less per month. We invite you to try it with our free trial and see if you agree.

What if Sentrie blocks a site or app that I want?

Some mobile apps may not work properly when ads are blocked. In this case, you can easily exclude that app from the Sentrie protection. Simply go to the Settings menu, then to the Excluded Apps tab and select the apps to be excluded.

There’s also a possibility that you want to be able to navigate to a web page that is actually an advertising service, but one that you want to access. In this case, you can disable Sentrie while you are accessing that site and then re-enable the service to continue protection at a later time.

When will the iOS version be available?

Esguard.io fully intends to provide the Sentrie capabilities to iOS users in the near future. If you would like to be added to our list of users interested in an iOS version, please complete our Contact Us form and we’ll notify you as soon as that version is available. In addition, we will be offering an exclusive discount made available only to those iOS users who have signed up on our waiting list.

How do I redeem a promotional code within the app?

Once in awhile esguard.io runs promotional marketing campaigns to get people excited to use Sentrie. The following will help guide you on how to redeem the code, easily.

1. Launch App
2. Menu (Upper-Left)
3. Subscription Plans
4. Select "Monthly Plan"
5. G Pay or (Payment Methods)
6. Redeem Code

7. Enter the Promotional Code

8. Press the green "Redeem" button

You're all set!

Enjoy your promotional service with esguard.io