Since we launched our mobile privacy service on Android, PGPP, a few months ago, we’ve been hard at work adding features, building out infrastructure, and much more. Today we wanted to update the community on some of those new developments. If you’re new to PGPP, read more about the security model of PGPP.
First, we’re excited to add support for something lots of users have asked us for: F-Droid. Second, we often get questions from users of many privacy-oriented Android OSes, across various device models, and we haven’t had a chance to write up a guide for these until now. Third, we have now rolled out support for UDP traffic in Relay both in PGPP and in the standalone Relay app; this means VoIP apps and UDP-based video chat should now work just fine.
As a reminder: you can try out PGPP at your convenience and we have a pro-rated refund policy down to the minute. That means that if you sign up and you change your mind, you’re not forced to pay for the whole month. Instead, just unsubscribe and you’ll receive a refund for the entirety of the remaining time in the month.
F-Droid and APK
F-Droid enables app developers to share their apps with users without going through the Google Play store. We’ve gotten a lot of requests for a PGPP F-Droid repo and have set one up – check out PGPP now available via F-Droid at fdroid.invisv.com. To add this repo, simply open F-Droid Settings on your phone, tap Repositories, tap the “+”, and type fdroid.invisv.com in the box. Then you can enable the INVISV repo and swipe down on the main F-Droid screen to update F-Droid to see newly available apps, which will now include PGPP when you search.
For those users who would like to receive the APK directly from INVISV not via F-Droid, you can get the latest APK here.
GrapheneOS PGPP Guide
Many GrapheneOS users have told us that they’re using PGPP just fine on their devices. Now that we’ve made an F-Droid repo available, we’ve double checked that everything is working smoothly on GrapheneOS. There is one configuration step that is required to get PGPP mobile plans to work, which is to enable sandboxed eSIM support that is needed for any eSIM functionality on GrapheneOS and is needed to enable the PGPP app to change eSIMs. If you are using the PGPP app solely for Relay functionality you won’t need to enable sandboxed eSIM support.
CalyxOS PGPP Guide
Numerous CalyxOS users have told us that they’re using PGPP just fine on their devices. To our knowledge, no special configuration is required.
PGPP Device Support
We’ve tested PGPP Mobile Pro/Core plans on a wide range of phones. Mobile Pro/Core plans require modern eSIM support. In general it is best to disable/remove any existing SIMs or eSIMs before using PGPP Mobile plans.
Here are the phone models that we’ve tested PGPP Pro/Core with and have had good luck:
- Google Pixel 4, 4a, 4 XL, 5, 6, 6a, 6 Pro, 7, 7 Pro
- Samsung S22
- Fairphone 4
Other recent eSIM-capable Android phones should be able to use PGPP Mobile Pro/Core plans, but we haven’t tested them yet. (Please let us know at pgpp@invisv.com about your experience on any device.)
Relay functionality in PGPP works on a wide range of devices (including tablets and chromebooks) – we haven’t found a recent Android device that doesn’t support Relay, but would love to hear your experiences with it.
New PGPP Relay Features
Over the past few months we have been rolling out new PGPP features but haven’t had a chance to write about them. The key new features are regarding Relay functionality in PGPP:
Blocking of Malware/Tracking Domains
Relay now has support for blocking of malware/tracker domains, based upon a aggregation of the biggest filter lists out there. We’ve found this improves browsing performance and while also enhancing your privacy.
UDP and VoIP app support
Relay now supports almost all UDP ports, meaning that VoIP, UDP-based video chat, and other similar apps should work just fine via Relay.
Secure SMTP and Secure IMAP support
Relay now supports secure SMTP and IMAP, so mail apps that needed access to those ports should now work fine.
Geographic Coverage across 4 Continents
Relay now has egresses across four continents, ensuring high performance in a wide range of places around the world – North America, South America, Asia, and Europe.