Hello guys and sorry for being late to the party.
First of all, we should have answered all these questions in one centralised place instead and it is our fault that it still does not exist. Here are some good news though, until the end of the year we will launch a knowledge base website.
Normally, when you use VPN, your traffic is routed through it.
Something like this:
Device <------> VPN server <------> Internet
"Fake VPN" in our case means, that there is no "VPN server". Your outgoing traffic stays the same, we use it for one thing only - to override system DNS settings.
The thing is that VPN API is the only possible way to override system DNS settings. You can't do it manually when you're on mobile data. What for Wi-Fi, you'll have to change DNS settings for every new Wi-Fi network you connect to.
Not really. DNS is used for resolving domain names to IP addresses, not for routing traffic:
https://cdn.adguard.com/public/Adguard/Blog/dns_request_scheme.png
Unlike OpenDNS, Adguard DNS provides no-logging privacy policy.
Anyway, starting from the latest
AG PRO beta version, it is possible to create your own rules for DNS-level blocking.
We're one step from introducing DNS-level system wide ad blocking, which will not involve using our DNS servers at all.