If you are not familar with the Sentinel Network an easy explanation would be:

any user can host a VPN on their internet, or with distributed nodes, and participate in "bandwidth mining" where users earn rewards ($DVPN or IBC tokens) when clients connect to their nodes

This creates a truly decentralized VPN otherwise known as a dVPN. It makes it unfathomably hard, if not impossible, to censor these VPNs, because they are user generated and spread throughout the world.

There are a few apps I will be covering that can get you started in the world of dVPN. The first, and this first post, is the Exidio App powered by the Solar Labs team.

Exidio (Android)

This app as gone through a rough battle this year as the Sentinel Network experience outages due to network upgrades. This can be seen as a good thing as the app functions better than prior to the upgrades.

A user enters their seed phrase in the app which acts like a wallet. A user then can select from a list of VPNs all around the globe and enter how much DVPN they want to spend or how many GBs they want to use for that particular connection. Load time has greatly improved with the recent upgrades, but sometimes it could be up to a minute to start the app. This is due to the RPC calls the app makes to get Right This Minute (RTM) data for a live feed.

The connection is simple and works 90% of the time. I have noticed that if you leave it connected and take your phone somewhere where the network changes, you will experience a disconnect and have a rough time reconnecting to some nodes. It's best to disconnect to the node if you plan on leaving your house, work, cafe, or wherever you are using the app.

I have noticed that a few times I need to clear the cache and data and basically start fresh by re-adding my seed phrase to the Apps wallet. Not sure why this is the case, but it does solve the problem of not being able to connect to the nodes I subscribed.

Subscriptions are straight forward. There is even a fiat on-ramp where users can purchase the DVPN token with a credit card straight in the app. I personally got my DVPN tokens from the Polarity Exchange and transfered them to my DVPN wallet address.

There are over 1000 nodes now to choose from. Much higher then then initial 200 or so when I first used the app. Most nodes are fast and keep the connection secure. Since the Sentinel network upgrade, I have noticed a very strong improvement in the connection status and disconnection status. This was overdue as there was intermittent problems prior.

The interface is easy to use with a great UX. It is my go to Android app for using the Sentinel dVPN service.

Rating

8.5/10

Pros

• Fiat on-ramp
• Intuitive design
• Fast connection
• Good data report
• Reliable Connections

Cons

• Disconnect problems
• Clear cache / Data often enough that it becomes a hassle
• Some subscriptions don't show up or seems to be random selection