What Is MACE?

MACE is a system developed by Private Internet Access (PIA) to help protect our customer's privacy and security. MACE returns IP addresses of unwanted domain names as an address that is not routable on the public internet.

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Detailed Explanation

If you visit a website, your browser loads contents from that website. To better visualize this, we will use an example with a fictional website. Let's say you visit www.dogsareawesome.com/dog/beagle in your browser. They have a tie-up with the advertising and tracking company "EvilCorp". The content your browser sees is: 

 

<html> 

<head> 

<script src="https://dogsareawesome.com/main.js"></script> 

<script src="http://track.evilcorp.com/track.php?url=dogsareawesome.com/dog/beagle"></script> 

</head> 

<body> 

<h3>Beagles are awesome!</h3> 

<img src="/dog/beagle.jpg" /> 

<div id="ad"></div> 

</body> 

</html>

 

Here is what your browser does: 

  1. Asks the DNS server for the IP address of "dogsareawesome.com," which may return something like "54.113.12.45." 
  2. Fetches the page.
  3. Fetches any images, scripts, etc. on the page. 
  4. Realizes it needs to fetch a script from "track.evilcorp.com." 
  5. Asks the DNS server for the IP address of "track.evilcorp.com," which might result in "31.11.51.22." 
  6. Makes a request to "31.11.51.22." When it does this, it may also share information with the tracking site, such as visited pages or cookie-related data. The tracker can then modify the page and add advertisements relevant to your content.  

To protect against this, some browser extensions check each site against a list of known tracking pages. They then intercept and prevent the request from happening as needed. This means the request to "track.evilcorp.com" from step 6 will fail.  

MACE works differently. If you enable the feature, your browser requests the IP address of "track.evilcorp.com" and the DNS will return "127.0.0.2," which points back to the local computer. As a result, your browser will not be able to make any tracking requests. 

Advantages of MACE Compared to Other Adblockers

  • It is a built-in feature, so you do not have to install additional extensions or configure browser settings. 
  • You might find MACE faster and more memory efficient because your browser is no longer comparing each URL against potentially thousands of rules. 
  • We update our list of malicious domains very regularly to ensure you are always protected. 
  • On mobile, browsing with MACE may help reduce battery drain depending on your type of usage. 

FAQ

  • What publicly available blocklists do you use? We use the following blocklists: http://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/.
  • How often do you check for updates for these public blocklists? We currently check for updates once per month. 
  • Do you use additional blocking rules that you have added internally? No.
  • Are so-called "acceptable ads" allowed? As we do not edit any of the lists we use (and block on a DNS level), we do not and cannot check for acceptable or non-acceptable ads. 
  • Do you whitelist certain advertisement providers in exchange for financial support? No. 
  • Do you whitelist certain advertisement providers without financial support? No. 
  • Do you whitelist your own advertisements? No. 
  • Do you manually blacklist advertisements of competitors? No. 

Platform Availability

The MACE feature is available on the following PIA apps:

Using MACE

Note: You must be connected to the VPN for the MACE feature to work.

Here is how to enable MACE on different platforms:

Desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux)
  1. Open the app and click the three-dot menu icon (⋮). 
  2. Select Settings. 
  3. Click the Privacy tab. 
  4. Check the PIA MACE option. 
Android
  1. Launch the app and tap the hamburger menu (☰). 
  2. Next, tap Settings.
  3. Tap Privacy. 
  4. Toggle PIA MACE on.
Smart TVs (Android TV and Fire TV)
  1. Open the app and select the cog icon in the top right corner of the main screen.
  2. Next, select GENERAL SETTINGS.
  3. Select PRIVACY.
  4. Toggle PIA MACE on.

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