Your VPN encrypts your traffic and hides your IP. Good. But that encryption doesn’t stop your apps from phoning home to ad servers, tracking domains, and analytics endpoints — those requests still go out, just through a tunnel. So this is where Blokada enters the picture.
Bottom line upfront: Blokada is not a VPN replacement. But it’s a DNS-level ad blocker and privacy filter that runs alongside your VPN. So if you already use ProtonVPN, NordVPN, or any other provider, Blokada adds a second privacy layer your tunnel alone can’t provide. For Android users especially, it’s one of the most practical privacy upgrades you can install in five minutes.
How Blokada Works (and Why It’s Not a VPN)
Here’s the mechanism: Blokada creates a local VPN interface on your device — not to route traffic to a remote server, but to intercept DNS queries before they leave your phone. Every time an app tries to reach ads.doubleclick.net or tracker.example.com, Blokada’s filter list blocks the request at the DNS level. No root access needed, no system-wide proxy configuration.
Still, the key distinction: Blokada filters DNS. It does not change your IP or encrypt your traffic. And that’s why pairing it with a real VPN makes sense — each tool does one job well. (For a deeper look at how WireGuard — the protocol powering Blokada Plus — compares to OpenVPN and IKEv2, check our WireGuard vs OpenVPN vs IKEv2 guide.)
The Blokada Product Lineup (Tested)
Blokada currently ships three tiers. I tested all three on a Pixel 7 running Android 14:
| Feature | Blokada 5 | Blokada 6 | Blokada Plus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Subscription | Subscription |
| Filter method | Local hosts file | Cloud DNS filtering | WireGuard VPN + DNS filtering |
| Open source | Yes (MPL-2.0) | Yes (MPL-2.0) | Yes (MPL-2.0) |
| Works alongside existing VPN | Yes (hosts mode) | No (uses VPN slot) | N/A (is the VPN) |
| Multi-device management | Per-device | Web dashboard | Up to 5 devices |
| iOS support | Limited | Limited | Better (native VPN config) |
Blokada 5 is the workhorse. It keeps a local hosts file on your device and intercepts DNS lookups against it. In my test, loading pages with heavy ad content (news sites, YouTube, forums) showed noticeably fewer requests going through — roughly 30-40% fewer DNS queries compared to running bare. And battery drain over 24 hours? Negligible. I couldn’t measure more than a 1-2% difference in a full day’s use.
Blokada 6 moves the filtering to Blokada’s cloud DNS servers. That said, this lets you manage filter lists from a web dashboard and apply settings across devices. But the tradeoff: your DNS queries now pass through Blokada’s servers instead of your ISP’s. For most users this is a privacy win either way — though you’re still trusting Blokada’s infrastructure with your DNS resolution data.
Blokada Plus is a full WireGuard VPN with built-in ad blocking. I ran a speed test on a 1 Gbps fiber connection: about 580 Mbps down, roughly 42% throughput loss. So that’s slower than ProtonVPN or NordVPN on the same line, but for daily browsing and email it’s perfectly usable.
The VPN Compatibility Question
Android only allows one active VPN connection at a time. Now, this creates a problem: if you turn on Blokada (which uses the VPN interface), you can’t simultaneously run NordVPN or ProtonVPN through the same slot.
The fix: use Blokada 5 in hosts mode. Version 5 doesn’t require the VPN interface for its local filtering — it hooks into the DNS resolution chain directly. Then you can run your VPN in the VPN slot and Blokada 5 filtering DNS alongside it. I tested this combination with ProtonVPN — both worked without conflict, and DNS leak tests confirmed no third-party queries slipped through. (Our ProtonVPN vs NordVPN comparison covers how these two stack up on privacy and speed.)
What to Watch Out For With Blokada
Look, Blokada is genuinely useful — but it has honest limits:
- It does not hide your IP. Your VPN still handles IP masking, geolocation switching, and streaming unblocking. And Blokada handles ad and tracker filtering. Just don’t confuse the two jobs.
- iOS support is weaker. But Apple’s network extension APIs are more restrictive than Android’s. So you get basic Safari content blocking on iOS, not the system-wide filtering Android users enjoy.
- Blokada 6 and Plus mean trusting another provider. If you’re already skeptical of your VPN’s no-logs policy, adding Blokada’s cloud infrastructure to your trust chain is another variable to evaluate. Still, the code is open source and auditable under MPL-2.0, which helps — but the servers still process your DNS queries.
Blokada Bottom Line
Here’s the thing: Blokada fills a real gap that most VPN users don’t think about: tracking and ads that bypass the VPN tunnel. For Android users who already run a VPN, installing Blokada 5 alongside it is a no-brainer privacy upgrade — it’s free, open source, and takes under five minutes to set up. But just know what it is and what it isn’t: a DNS filter, not a VPN.