- Updated 2026-10-09
Terms of use
The terms for using the ClearDeck Android app — what it is, what it is not, and which responsibilities stay yours.
These terms cover the ClearDeck Android app. They are written to be short and concrete rather than long and impressive. Where something is your decision, they say so instead of burying it.
Who we are
ClearDeck is published by Beijing Fenghong Technology Co., Ltd. (北京烽鸿科技有限责任公司). In these terms, “we” means that company.
What ClearDeck is
ClearDeck is an on-device network filtering tool for Android. It builds a local VPN (TUN) interface, checks every app’s connections against rules on the phone, and refuses the ones that match. Everything happens locally.
What ClearDeck is not
| It is not | What that means in practice |
|---|---|
| A VPN service | There is no remote node, no relay server and nothing to subscribe to. Your traffic does not leave your phone through us. |
| An anonymisation service | It does not change your IP address, and it does not hide your traffic from your network operator or your carrier. |
| A security guarantee | It blocks what the bundled and imported rules match. It cannot promise to catch everything. |
| A monitoring product | It does not send your activity to anyone. Access records stay on your phone and are yours to export or clear. |
Licence and source
ClearDeck is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPL-3.0). Distribution of the app binary is accompanied by the corresponding source, as that licence requires. You are free to study, modify and redistribute it under those terms. The licences page explains how that licence came about.
No warranty
ClearDeck is supplied as-is, without warranty of any kind. That is not a formality — it has consequences you should know about:
- A filtering rule can over-block: it can block something you wanted to reach.
- It can also under-block: it can miss something you wanted blocked.
- Community rule lists contain both false positives and false negatives, and no amount of testing removes them completely.
You install and use it at your own risk.
It does not replace your own judgement
Do not rely on ClearDeck as your only protection against malware, phishing or any other attack. Keep your device updated, install apps from official sources, and treat unexpected links with suspicion. ClearDeck is one layer, not a guarantee.
The lockdown option is your choice, and it has consequences
Android offers “Block connections without VPN”. If you turn it on for ClearDeck, then whenever the protection engine is not running, nothing connects at all — the phone behaves as if it has no internet.
That is the intended behaviour of that option, not a defect: it is Android refusing to let traffic bypass the tunnel. Enabling it means accepting that a failed start looks exactly like a broken network. You can turn it off again in the same place at any time.
Deep inspection requires installing a certificate
Deep inspection is off by default. Turning it on requires installing the ClearDeck certificate so the phone will show the app its own encrypted connections. Whether to do that is your decision.
- The certificate is generated on your device and never leaves it.
- Installing a user certificate means ClearDeck is technically able to see the decrypted content of the connections it intercepts. That is inherent to the technique, not a design choice.
- You can remove the certificate from your phone at any time; that turns the feature off and changes nothing else.
Acceptable use
Do not use ClearDeck to break the law in your jurisdiction, or to help anyone else do so. What is lawful depends on where you are, and that is your responsibility, not ours.
Third-party rule lists
The rules ClearDeck ships with come from community projects, and each is governed by its own licence. The sources, and the licences we can confirm, are listed on the licences page. We do not relicense those lists.
Changes to these terms
If these terms change, the “updated” date at the top changes with it. Continued use of the app after a change means you accept the new terms. Material changes will be noted in the changelog.
Governing law and contact
ClearDeck is published by Beijing Fenghong Technology Co., Ltd. (北京烽鸿科技有限责任公司). A governing-law clause is not finalised, so we do not state one here.
Contact details are not final yet and will be published before the first public release. Until then, please use the project’s issue tracker.