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iPhone 11 Pro Always on VPN
- Thread starter iPhone2019
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it’s not something a OS developer would ever consider. You have to manually turn it on as it functions now. It turns off by itself as well for some reason when its been asleep for some time, so you have to check if it’s on each time. I think Android has Always on VPN and I think iOS had it until a few years ago, but removed it after a lawsuit.
I don't, the VPN reconnects automatically whenever it's been disconnected due to device sleep. It's not always-on, but it also doesn't require any action on my part.
This is in iOS 13.1.2.
Interesting. I get some reconnection error message in OpenVPN when it won't turn on... Are you guys using OpenVPN?
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I used to, but when ProtonVPN released their native client about a year ago I moved over. In my experience it's been more reliable than OpenVPN was.
I‘m using OpenVPN. I find in the iPad it’s flawless, I almost never have to reactivate it. On the phone I find it to be inconsistent. It can last a few days or a few hours. I’m not sure what the issue is. It’s always been that way for me.
I use VPN services everyday and they seem to stay activated for my usage. I guess if you’re not using the device for some time then turning it off is more sensible to save battery life, don’t you think? Try to keep the device connected to a power source when you use VPN. Hopefully that’ll keep it activated even when the device is locked.
It might be sensible, but I have to wait a few seconds to have the VPN connected due to device sleep before I can surf the Internet, or log in to some app. That, I find, is a bit annoying. What happends with emails and other stuff that you receive when the device is at sleep? Is the VPN activated in those cases?
Some information I found on reddit:
It seems that ios is designed to put wifi chip to sleep, in order to perserve more battery life, if iphone is locked/in sleep (not immediatly) which means you still get internet but not FULL connection, but VPN need full connection to work, so VPNs are forced to disconnect during this period of time.
The situation got me to investigate:
In summary, the response I got from different parties:
ExpressVPN: Not aware of the problem, could because of the upodate a week ago.
ProtonVPN: This is the nature of ios, your traffic while locked is not protected and there is nothing VPN developers can do at the moment.
Online (but generally talking about ios 11 and before): This is a 'feature', you just can't get VPN while locked w/o jailbreak or not lock your phone at all. Some people also mentioned a VPN 'always on' feature,
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Yep
thanks for the digging. Pretty much what I expected. Your situation is pretty specific to be honest.
I could be mistaken, but my understanding is that you're not really receiving emails when the device is locked because applications like email are suspended to preserve battery life. You are receiving email notifications via Apple to the notification service on the iPhone that stays active.
As for "other stuff" I just did a test to force an actual download while the phone was locked. I waited for the square VPN logo to go away, then forced the download. The VPN logo reappeared. So it would look like the VPN is indeed activated, or at least it does under the conditions of my test.
Which iPhone do you have? I'm not sure if it depends on the model, but mine has the option of a VPN. Although since I have Surfshark, which I use on my computer, I just downloaded the app and started using it on my phone as well. I would recommend doing the same thing, not necessarily with Surfshark since there are a lot of other providers (personally for me, Surfshark was the best option price-wise), but it's good to have a VPN on all of your devices.
Yes it is it just does not conform to the lies most consumers buy into about VPNs (Nord and PIA being some of the worst offenders). My traffic is routed through a Cloudflare data center on their network this is by definition a VPN if you visit a Cloudflare hosted site they have the ability to see your orginal IP allowing you to securely access sites that are blocked by most other VPN providers its the perfect setup for the average user that wants something on 24/7 without issue.
