Website
The AetherRoute website uses no advertising, analytics, fingerprinting, or marketing cookies. Infrastructure may process standard connection metadata for security and troubleshooting, such as time, IP address, path, status, and User-Agent; access logging is disabled on the current static site. The download service serves public release files only.
Application
The app contains no third-party advertising or behavioral analytics SDK. Profiles and subscription URLs are kept in encrypted local storage. If you enable iCloud sync, profiles are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before being stored in your iCloud, Keys are stored in Keychain for cross-device synchronization. Older compatibility recovery versions may have left a raw synchronization key in iCloud key-value storage. The current iPhone version no longer uploads raw keys and requests removal of the legacy key record after authenticating the old catalog and saving its key in Keychain. This cannot revoke past uploads or guarantee removal of copies retained by Apple. The app processes connection diagnostics and traffic statistics locally. The developer does not collect or upload browsing history, DNS queries, or connection destinations, sell user data, use it for advertising, or share it with analytics providers. Diagnostic sharing is initiated by you. The iPhone summary includes app and system versions, VPN state, configured routing mode, and latest-session byte totals. It excludes profile content, subscription URLs, node names, credentials, browsing addresses, and free-form errors. You choose the recipient or sharing service.
Proxy and subscription providers
When connected, traffic, DNS queries, and subscription refreshes reach providers you select. Those independent services may observe your IP address and request metadata. Review and trust providers before importing them.
DNS services and local cache
On iPhone, DNS follows your imported subscription by default. When DNS configuration is absent, the engine defaults to 114.114.114.114 and 8.8.8.8. Enabling the encrypted DNS preset sends main-upstream queries to Cloudflare (DoH) and Quad9 (DoT). Subscription bootstrap, private-domain policies, and proxy-host resolvers may retain their configured services and transports, so this option does not mean every DNS query is encrypted. DNS providers receive domain queries and connection metadata needed for resolution.
The iPhone app stores encrypted Fake-IP address mappings locally to keep cached synthetic addresses compatible after reconnecting. Flushing the engine DNS response cache does not clear the iOS system cache or remove those mappings. Apple Keychain entries and data already synchronized to iCloud may persist after deleting profiles or uninstalling the app. Disabling sync or uninstalling the app does not guarantee deletion of existing cloud copies.
Licensing and updates
The first edition is free, with no account or paid activation. It sends no device identifiers or activation requests to a licensing service. Mac updates use manual DMG downloads from this website, with published SHA-256 checksums to verify installers. For iPhone versions obtained through TestFlight or the App Store, Apple handles installation and updates under its own privacy policies.
Contact
For privacy questions, use GitHub Issues to contact BianChengBuLiangRen.