A guard between your phone and the internet.
Apps and web pages open connections you never see. While Rostam is connected, Protect Mode checks where each one goes and refuses the destinations known for malware, phishing and controlling infected devices. It blocks ads and trackers as well, and it shows you every block with its reason.
No account and no root. Free in Iran, Russia, Cuba and Syria.
What it stops
Two kinds of protection, both visible in the app.
Always, while Protect Mode is on
Hosts that hand out malicious apps and files.
Fake sign-in and payment pages made to take your passwords and card details.
Servers that send orders to infected phones and computers. If something on your phone tries to reach one, the connection is refused.
Networks of hijacked routers and devices that attackers use to hide where they come from.
Lists you switch on and off
Ad and tracking servers that follow you from app to app. Free for everyone. Blocking works by destination name, so an ad served from the same address as the site itself can still appear.
Code inside some free apps that quietly rents out your phone's connection to strangers.
Add any site to Always block, or paste a list of your own.
Ads and trackers and Hidden proxy services start switched on. Every list can be turned off in Profiles.
How it works
Connect
Turn Rostam on. Protect Mode works inside its encrypted connection, so it needs no root and nothing to set up.
Each new destination is checked
The lists you have switched on are matched on the phone straight away. A destination the app has not seen before is checked against our threat list in the background, and the answer is remembered for up to a day.
Bad ones are refused and listed
Once a destination is known to be bad, every connection to it is refused. Each block appears in the Blocked list with its reason and stays on the phone for 30 days.
Every block, with its reason. One tap to allow.
Example data. Every domain and address in these pictures is reserved for documentation and belongs to nobody.
It looks at where a connection goes, never at what is inside it.
What is sent
Destinations that have not been checked yet, and an identifier the app made up for this phone. Only through the encrypted connection. No name, because there is no account.
What is kept
The destination is used to answer the check and is not stored. To enforce the daily limit the service counts checks with one-way codes that cannot be turned back into addresses, and the count starts again every day.
What it never sees
Your passwords, your messages, the content of the pages you read, the files you download. They travel inside the connection and Protect Mode does not open it.
Turn Protect Mode off and nothing is checked and nothing is sent. The full privacy page
On your phone
Android
A direct download from this site, so it works where an app store does not. The app updates itself. Android 6 or newer.
Install on AndroidQuestions
Does it slow my phone down?
Protect Mode does not make a connection wait for the check. Lists are matched inside the app, and new destinations are checked in the background in small batches. What you feel is the speed of the connection itself.
Can it see my passwords?
No. Protect Mode looks only at where a connection goes: the name or address of the destination. Passwords, messages and the content of pages travel inside the connection; they are not read and not sent for checking.
What does a block look like?
The page or app simply cannot reach that destination, as if it were down. In Rostam, the Blocked list shows the destination, the reason and the time, and, when the check knows it, the network and country the address belongs to.
How do I allow a site?
Tap Allow next to it in the Blocked list. To let a site through every list for good, open it and tap Trust, or add it under Rules, Always allow.
Is it free?
Protect Mode comes with the app at no extra charge, ad blocking included. In Iran, Russia, Cuba and Syria the whole app is free. Elsewhere it runs on the app's subscription: what it costs.
Is it an antivirus?
No. It does not scan your files or your apps. It refuses connections to destinations known to be dangerous, which is where most of the harm from a bad link or a bad app comes from.
Does it work when the VPN is off?
No. Protect Mode works through Rostam's own connection, on Android and on iPhone. When you disconnect, it stops checking.
Turn it on today.
Install Rostam, connect, and the first blocks appear in the list the same day.