We are different
Since the very first day of launching Saily, we’ve had so many questions. How are you different? Why is Nord Security building a travel eSIM? Will there be any cybersecurity-related features? Now I can proudly say – we are different. Today we are starting to roll out something that hasn’t been done before – network-level security for your eSIM connectivity.
Let me explain.

But first, let me talk a bit about our flagship product, NordVPN. The way it works is it encrypts your entire internet traffic while it's still on your device. Then it sends the traffic to the NordVPN server depending on the location you've picked, decrypts it on the NordVPN server, and sends it to the destination.
The part where traffic is encrypted on a device is designed to hide information about your internet traffic from any party in between your device and the NordVPN server. These parties usually include an unsecure Wi-Fi connection and the ISP you use.
Once the encryption is done, traffic is sent to a NordVPN server that's in whatever country you pick. This next part is designed to hide your IP address from the actual destination, this way providing a privacy and security shield of sorts – the website you visit cannot trace you, because what it sees is that the visitor IP address is owned by NordVPN, which has a no-logs policy.
Besides that, NordVPN sets DNS resolution servers on your device. They resolve what domain name should redirect to what server IP address for you to access the website. NordVPN this way controls what's tracked by third party DNS providers and blocks some websites that are malicious or serve ads.
Enter Saily.
From now on, while using Saily, you will be able to pick your virtual location and decide if you want ads and malicious/scammy websites blocked. It’s similar to what NordVPN does, but it works in a very different way.
Once you pick a virtual location on the Saily app, your cellular internet traffic gets routed through a NordVPN server in that location. So, while you use your regular cellular connectivity, your traffic goes from your device to your carrier's servers and from there to the public internet. While using Saily, your traffic will go from your device to your carrier's servers and from there to the Saily routing servers, which will send it to the destination directly or to the NordVPN server location of your choosing.
The difference between Saily and NordVPN is that Saily doesn't encrypt your data on the device. It doesn’t require an app on your phone to manipulate traffic – it works on top of your regular cellular network connectivity, and the app is only required to manage which location you would like to use.
This way Saily will provide a similar privacy and security shield – the websites you visit won’t be able to trace you. They will only see NordVPN IP addresses from the location you picked. So, while traveling to, for example, Thailand, you might be seen as browsing from the US.
The Saily virtual location resembles a VPN but is different. It doesn't provide end-to-end traffic encryption. However, since it only works on cellular data, Saily doesn't require as much encryption — cellular internet traffic is significantly more difficult to inspect compared to traffic on public Wi-Fi. This makes the experience seamless: With virtually no app involved, you are not dependent on your device's processing power to manage encryption, it does not impact your battery life, and the specifics of different operating systems don’t play any role. Therefore, there are no leaks or bugs — just an eSIM and its connectivity.
In addition, you will be able to turn on Adblock and Web Protection in the app. What this does is prevent you from accessing websites that serve ads, trackers, malware, and scams. It is especially useful because, according to our calculations, if you do heavy internet browsing other than on social media, you should be able to save yourself from using up to 21% of data.
This, again, works at the eSIM level, meaning that even though you turn it on and off in the app, the app itself isn't required for Adblock and Web Protection to work. We use NordVPN’s battle-tested Threat Protection feature to block all the nasty stuff, so the list of websites we block is maintained across all the Nord Security products.
As I already mentioned, we are starting to roll this out today. These features make us very different both from your regular carrier and other travel eSIMs out there. This will serve as a foundation for the future, so please help us shape Saily into the best and most secure connectivity provider out there.
Looking forward to building some more cool stuff.
V.