iOS asks about a DNS setting
Updated September 2026
That is the web shield, and iOS is right to ask: adding a DNS setting is something an app has to be given permission for, once. It is not a VPN and it opens no tunnel. It changes where this phone asks for addresses, so that a request for a known gambling site is answered with nothing and the page never loads. iOS keeps the switch, which is why Fold'em walks you into Settings to finish it and cannot turn it off for you afterwards.
What iOS is asking to add
Before a browser can load anything it asks where the site is, and that question goes to a resolver. The web shield changes which resolver this phone asks. Fold'em's own resolver answers a known gambling domain with nothing at all, so the page never loads and the browser reports that the server cannot be found. About 356,500 known gambling sites are answered that way, and because every browser asks the same question, it reaches all of them rather than Safari alone.
iOS treats a DNS setting as something you have to agree to, so the app saves the configuration and then iOS puts up its own alert asking you to allow it. Answering Don't Allow simply returns you to the app with nothing changed. Nothing scolds you and you can start again whenever.
It is worth saying plainly what it is not. There is no VPN and no packet tunnel: Fold'em routes none of your traffic through itself, and there is no extra network extension on the phone. It answers a question about addresses, and that is the whole of the mechanism.
Finishing the switch
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Add the shield
The first beat explains what will happen and its button saves the configuration, which is what triggers Apple's alert. If the save fails, the app says so in one flat line and offers another go: it cannot tell a refusal apart from a failure, so it does not pretend to.
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Choose Fold'em under DNS
Saving it is not the same as switching it on, so one switch is left and it lives in iOS Settings: Settings › General, then VPN, DNS & Device Management, then DNS, and choose Fold'em. The Open Settings button lands on Fold'em's own page because iOS aims no deeper than that, which is what the three steps on screen are for.
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Come back, or do not
The app watches the setting rather than waiting for you to return, and moves itself on the moment the switch flips. Leaving Fold'em entirely is fine: the sheet works out which beat is true by reading the setting again every time it opens, so a saved but unswitched shield resumes at the three steps instead of starting over.
The shield, on
Turning it off, and why Fold'em cannot
The same three steps run backwards: General, then VPN, DNS & Device Management, then DNS, and choose Automatic. Fold'em never removes the configuration itself, and there is no off switch anywhere in the app. The switch inside Fold'em opens instructions rather than doing anything, because the app only observes this setting and claiming otherwise would be a control that does not control anything.
If you already run a VPN
A VPN or a private relay answers DNS before the shield can, so with one running the tile reads Standing by over Another VPN in front. It is not an accusation and it is often nothing at all: plenty of people run one for work. The shield stays saved and takes over again by itself the moment that setting goes off, and the sites you added yourself still apply in Safari in the meantime.
What this does not do
The setting blocks domains on a list and nothing else: it does not filter the web at large, it does not read pages, and it does not touch anything on another phone or a laptop. It does not shield apps, which is Screen Time's job on a separate layer, so the DNS setting being on says nothing about whether your apps are sealed. It cannot be held open by Fold'em: iOS owns the switch and it can be turned off in Settings at any moment, which is why the app checks it, shows what it finds on the Shield tab, and raises the fault on Home until it is back.
Still stuck? Email support@foldem.app and we answer within two working days.