Ad Guard interferes with Apple Mail Privacy in Monterey

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I have the new privacy settings acting in Apple Mail in Monterey: “Protect Mail Activity”

Mail Privacy Protection works by hiding your IP address and loading remote content privately in the background, even when you don’t open the message. This makes it harder for senders to follow your Mail activity.

However, I found that for every email, Mail threw off a notice that “network settings” prevented Mail from privately loading remote content. Turns out that I had been using Ad Guard, installed via SetApp. Ad Guard (without asking permission) installs and activates a VPN for its own use. The Ad Guard VPN was what prevented Mail Privacy Protection from working correctly.

Since I’d rather have Apple privacy protection, I threw Ad Guard overboard.

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I also stopped using Ad Guard for a few months (used mainly on iPad and iPhone). I found the app to be causing more issues than it is worth

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I had problems getting on the Internet after having had installed Monterey. I trashed the VPN. Took all day. Mcafee Tech Support was a nightmare.

I called Apple Care a few times. Winds up once we turned off Ad Guard I was able to get back on the Internet without any problems.

Nevertheless, I really liked AdGuard as I detest commercials ads with a passion, especially the headache inducing flashing ones. I’m prone to migraines.

And I will never again download an upgrade right away. I’ll wait until the bugs are sorted out. I thought Monterey was suppose to be quite stable. Right.

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It’s not just AdGaurd. It’s more on the side that iCloud private relay is not compatible with any VPN profile. Mail protection wotks similarly to private relay.

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do you think Apple will straighten that out?

I don’t care about the vpn. I have had it with mcafee but I’d like to get AdGuard back on there.

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They have fixed some compatibility issues between private relay and VPN in 15.1. The mail protection seems to be partially working with some VPNs. So there’s some hope.

But there’s been quite a few things on iOS that doesn’t work well with VPN, including long standing issues with HomeKit cameras. I guess it really depends if enough people are reporting these issues.

Edit: But this seems to be working as intended by Apple. See this support article.

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