Guardian Firewall + VPN Reviews

by Abusage

My reviews have gone from 5-star shortly after I helped with the pilot app, to 4-star when it got a bit more saturated and flaky, to 3 when certain map sites and an online list by craig started blocking, down to 2 stars when it seemed to break my connection 10-15% of the time, and now down to 1-star because now almost half the time I can even receive a text while this has been running for an hour or so.

I know the other VPNs do not offer the same incredibly necessary blocking, but when I use my other paid VPNs my connections are reliable 99% of the time instead of 30-45%.

Wish I could still use and love GuardianFirewallVPN. I will not be renewing once this year is up.

by Rawcruester

Support said sorry and they’re trying to find a solution. It unfortunately I’ll have to cancel my yearly subscription

by JonPaul2

Bought pro, same bugs. What a HUGE letdown. Protocols don’t work often and will think you’re in EU- preventing access to App Store and more. 3 year user finally done a/subscription

by Aaaaaaaaa Heeeeeelp

When using this VPN, numerous things break: Apple weather returns no data, podcasts won’t download, Dunkin app can’t process payments. I constantly have to turn off the VPN to get functionality back on my phone, which defeats the whole purpose

by Rokwing

I really love the firewall, but the VPN, which still does not use WireGuard, is way too slow. If you’re paying for a huge connection to wherever it is you use your phone, you don’t want to severely limit it with an outdated legacy VPN. Guardian is a firewall pioneer, it has an incredible firewall for mobile devices that is par none, but it is a VPN dinosaur. I heard Guardian will improvement WireGuard in 2021. Until then, I just won’t use GuardianFirewallVPN . When I can verify that it’s good to go and that the VPN is very fast, I’ll become a happy subscriber.

by USA36

This VPN uses old IKEv2 instead of WireGuard fast, modern, and more secure tunnel protocol that runs on the Linux Kernel. I hope in the future to see WireGuard implementation with this VPN. Nothing bad about this VPN but like I said in the current form it is slow for my taste. Once you implement WG I will give you 5 stars. Thx!

by Hallzabee420

This is a great service and I’ve been a paid monthly subscriber for about 2 years now.
Is a widget in the works? It would be helpful to toggle on and off easily on a widget iphone home screen. thank you!

by OGIPHONEGAMEE

I was scared when I thought my phone got hacked so when I downloaded GuardianFirewallVPN I thought the names were legit until I found Shazam😂😂😂

by Jeeves78

GuardianFirewallVPN crashes on launch and has continued doing this for at least the last week.

!wen patch

by Monster MC

I’ve downloaded AdGuard Pro, Lockdown and Guardian (Pro subscription).

AdGuard Pro is my favorite, but Guardian is incredibly trusted, simple to operate, and allows me to add my own blockers (by domain, one… painful… domain… manually… at… a… time…).

Guardian Pro is awesome, but it’s slow, and I don’t think it’s blocking as many tracking domains as others I’ve used.

I completely trust Guardian based on what I’ve read. Guardian Pro strikes a nice balance of blocking / protection without breaking your phone too badly. I just wish I could upload a TXT file of domains to block.

by 2trot

GuardianFirewallVPN works well and is updated regularly with features. Highly recommend

by Wavebear

I love GuardianFirewallVPN it protects me from the weirdos that continue to try and hack my phone. Thank you. Just wish there was a notification of what the individual IP addresss that try and get your information.

by Frank Panduh

Good data on what it’s blocking.
Quick customer service.

by Artangelji

Love it

by KDS777

Set it and forget it! Love the peace of mind Guardian gives, it is constantly working in the background to protect me, and I have not noticed any slow downs or hiccups! Can’t recommend enough!

by Ey3cry

Thank you for responding to my review I'm sorry about the misunderstanding I appreciate the service you offer. it was always a problem with the guardian app and never the brave browser! thanks again.

by Ubsjosososkek

I was wishing vpn was free for more then 3day but it wasn’t, but this was best vpn I ever found , just they are too expensive, and it only had 3 day free pass unlike other vpn they give fire as u watch and it work but for this it only had 3day pass and u have pay , it would be better if GuardianFirewallVPN had ads free vpn and firewall.
Overall GuardianFirewallVPN is best better then any other con I ever use
Thank you !

by Huskyandthehound

I’ve been able to set it and forget it. You can’t do this with NordVPN or many of the others. I almost never run into the same issues I randomly run into with the others.

Love the idea of the advertising/privacy firewall too.

by Akxlrider

Really THE great VPN. I fully believe the Pro subscription is the way to go. Customer service is second to none. The team behind Guardian Firewall is very responsive and they release rock solid updates that reflect their dedication to their customer base. I truly appreciate the set it and forget it stability that this VPN brings to iOS. I am Team Guardian all the way.

by None1111123

I’m a security professional and most VPNs are just packet-shifting scams. Guardian actually offers filtering of bad destinations in a usable interface. And I trust the company based on their staff’s reputations in the community.

by Must Exit

For blocking trackers and invasive network requests, consider the Lockdown app (I have no affiliation with that app except as a user) — it’s free, open source and all processing happens on the device, unlike this Guardian Firewall app where all your requests are sent to a server for processing (claimed here to be better for battery life).

The free tier on GuardianFirewallVPN only detects what can be blocked but doesn’t actually block it. It also seems to slow down the network access speed. The VPN service in the free tier is also vague by using terms like “short periods of time” (the FAQ and description don’t explain in simple terms what the free tier provides and what it doesn’t). The paid tier is extremely expensive. Even with family sharing, whenever that arrives, this would be expensive if the price remains the same.

What I would like to see is a significantly cheaper blocking app that does on-device processing without a VPN server/service bundled together, but that may not be possible with GuardianFirewallVPN since it depends on their VPN servers even for the blocking lists.

by Gabe12243

I installed this on my wife’s and my phone. I had preordered it a while back. It was easy and worked great for a day or two. It provided awesome info and a list of blocked location and blocked data. There were hundreds of items that were blocked in a couple of says. Then, suddenly, neither of us could use our phones for most common uses...my weather app wouldn’t update, we could text but not receive text photos, Snapchat would show notifications but not download the actual message, Facebook and Instagram would not update. I disabled GuardianFirewallVPN and both phones worked fine. I’ve tried it several times in the past couple of days...same result every time, everything works for a while then it blocks everything and I have to disable it again. I’m using it on my iPad and it seems to be fine for now. There aren’t any settings to be tinkered with so I don’t think it’s anything I’m doing wrong.

by James_J

The concept of having a VPN bundled with a firewall to block ads makes a lot of sense. If this was marketed that way, I'd be more prone to recommending this service.

As things stand though, on the one hand, I don't believe that a server-side firewall can effectively be invasive enough to preserve privacy against the worst actors -- Google, Facebook, et. al., where the first party (or necessary third party) is also the enemy.

On the other hand, I've had endless problems getting the VPN to stay connected. I come home and my phone doesn't work. That's the experience that's most common. It's probably some combination of my router's support for doing IPSEC through a NAT (I did toggle that feature on, and it's an Asus RT-AC66U, if that helps), and maybe spotty wifi. Either way, with Guardian turned off, my phone is "fine", and with it on, my phone frequently can't connect to anything.

by Slippery Pete

I like and trust this developer and think that what they are offering is important and technically challenging. However, I simply have too many periods where my phone connection refuses to function until I disable Guardian, when the connection immediately begins working.

My house unfortunately has several zones with different WiFi network names and sometimes switches to 4g when out of range. So, not ideal. Nevertheless, when I realise my phone is no longer communicating, and I turn off Guardian, it immediately begins working. I don’t mind paying this much for a hassle free service but in my situation at least, there are still some hassles.

by Apple User 8899

I am testing the free version before deciding to go with the paid version. I am frustrated that the protection keeps turning off if I moved to different WiFi location in my building . It’s still the same WiFi login but different location. If my phone change from WiFi to data it’s also turn off. Why? Will the paid version has an always-on setting so that it’s always connected automatically wherever I goes whether WiFi or data without having to check and turn on manually so often. I wish GuardianFirewallVPN to give protection always and I don’t want to think about it.

by Pattera5

I have been a happy disconnect user for some time now, but after reading about Guardian I was eager to try. When it appeared on my phone I immediately removed all other vpns and set up Guardian - super easy to do as there are really no options in GuardianFirewallVPN . It appeared to work fine for a few days, and was logging blocked attempts ( though it’s really not obvious what is being prevented). Now I’m experiencing lots of apps and web sites hanging and lots of total connectivity outages. I will monitor progress of GuardianFirewallVPN, but for now, for me, it’s back to disconnect.

by Wedge07

Give me EXACTLY what I want: a simple-to-use VPN that keeps Apps from tracking/selling my activity. My only concern is the slower speed as a result of tunneling from place to place. This is easily managed and preferred over not using Guardian... without it there are literally hundreds of data points being skimmed off my data!

by Will Henderson

I like GuardianFirewallVPN and the service it provides. But it feels very basic right now.

At the very least it needs to allow for filtering by type on the Alerts view, not just a huge scrolling chronological list. If I have 200 data trackers in the list, and one page hijacker, I have to manually scroll through the list and try to spot the different colored icon to find the one page hijacker. Why don’t the totals at the top of the list act as filters for the list? Tapping them seems to do nothing right now which is a missed opportunity.

Alerts should list GuardianFirewallVPN that initiated the blocked request. Maybe that’s difficult (or impossible) given iOS sandboxing but it’s expected functionality for an app like this. A firewall needs to expose the services triggering it, not just basically say “I blocked a bunch of stuff for you but where it came from is a mystery.”

by DemonDestructor

GuardianFirewallVPN is unreal!

In a world where data is being collected and tracked off your personal devices, GuardianFirewallVPN is designed to put your mind at ease. I’ve been using the beta and it’s been amazing! In a short amount of time, it has BLOCKED literally 1000s of trackers.
That includes data trackers known to collect analytics and device info., trackers used for receipt email messages, GPS location info trackers, trackers that collect personal data for ads, page hijackers, and more!!

The great thing about GuardianFirewallVPN is that it’s super easy to use, and will benefit everybody, whether you’re a security aficionado or just a regular and light iPhone/mobile user.

It’s scary to think about all the apps and websites that use trackers to pull information from your device. GuardianFirewallVPN makes it really easy to see all that is being blocked in the form of a “bank statement.”

Extra perk that it also has a VPN built into it :)

10/10 would recommend to everyone!!!

by JessieZMG

Im currently subscribed to guardian monthly subscription firewall and i had recently tested the firewall it seems its not functioning correctly or the update has caused an error because during my test my firewall failed to protect me i hope that you keep developing the firewall to be stronger during future updates id also like to mention that if possible could you add server that reside outside the us but please prioritize the firewall it is essential for me thanks i have had no issues with GuardianFirewallVPN it worked great until this point

by Happilyprotected

Guardian Firewall has consistently kept me protected in the most vulnerable public WiFi’s as well as blocked so many trackers. It’s kind of unreal the number! My favorite is know that my location is blocked from companies that I didn’t approve and also the page hi-jacker. Those used to get me all the time and it drove me crazy. Now I never get them and also see that they were blocked. I look forward to the next set of features. GuardianFirewallVPN only gets better and better. Really great!

by Maspy

I pre ordered this after reading a story about all the trackers and decided to give this a try. I thought I had my phone locked down with only a few apps having access to my location - looking at you waze. To my horror in just half a day I’ve had 12 locations trackers blocked and 234 data trackers blocked - holy cow. My only wish and flaw, is that I came find how to tell what app is firing off the trackers. I’d delete those in a heartbeat. Please add that feature - I have a right to know on my phone.

by Tagliasteel

I have been trying this for a couple of days and the performance is really impressive, even when compared with the most hyped (and expensive) VPN services.

I would like to see more granular controls on the level of aggressiveness, with the option of whitelisting services. Also, I’d like to be able to choose the location of the server manually when I need to. Last point, more information on what has been blocked would be very interesting.

by Tekhinator

I’ve been following the development of GuardianFirewallVPN and I can assure that people’s privacy is their priority. With all of the scandals that have emerged lately about apps and services not only creeping on your information but also selling it, GuardianFirewallVPN is a must. They have a simple business model and that is to give people back their privacy. I had the opportunity to try the beta and it blocked more than 1300 trackers in less than a week. Do your self a favor and download GuardianFirewallVPN!