I’m still struggling to solve this very serious problem with turning on my VPN. The problem is so severe that I haven’t been using my VPN even though I’m paying for it…
On my Windows 10 PC I have to exit/shut down all of my apps to make sure that my IP address can’t be leaked. When I’m 100% certain that all of my Apps have been shut down I turn on my VPN, but this takes time.
I thought about buying a new Windows PC just for the VPN to be used on but this seems like an expensive solution!
This is why I thought using a VPN Firefox extension like Mullvad VPN was my best solution.
Are you using the Mullvad VPN app for windows? They have a kill switch setting where if the VPN isn’t on, it kills internet traffic. Is that not working for you?
I just realised that I could always use 2 PC devices at the same time: One PC device with VPN turned on and one PC device with VPN turned off, but I can’t do that.
You mention that you cannot use 2 PCs but just as another option, could you consider a tablet such as a Pixel running GrapheneOS for your VPN use device?
I want to use the Mullvad VPN extension from within Firefox so that I don’t need to exit every damn App that’s open on my Windows 10 PC… It’s just so tedious closing every App before I open my VPN to the point where I’m not even using my VPN…
Hmm you might be right. Using an iPad to connect to the VPN and use the VPN may be my best hope? This might be my best solution?
I spend so much time making sure every App has been shut down/exited before I start the VPN because I’m worried about Apps connecting to the Internet while my VPN is turned on which would leak my IP…
I don’t really understand why you need to make sure all apps are closed before connecting to your vpn and what would happen if some app you use connects to the internet through the vpn?
I always thought it was necessary to close all Apps before starting a VPN connection to prevent the IP address from leaking?
I really want to get this figured out because it’s really limiting me! To the point where I haven’t been using my VPN because it takes 10 minutes for me to be 100% sure that all Apps are closed
I can’t use a virtual machine because my current PC only has 8GB of RAM. The perfect solution for me would be a setup where a particular web browser is the only App that the VPN is effecting and only the web browser has a different IP address while the rest of the Apps running are not effected at all.
Is this possible with Mullvad VPN or Firefox’s or Brave’s? My first thought was that these VPN’s ONLY effect the web browser and leaves all the other Apps untouched?
I just wish I could solve this problem because it’s really holding me back…
The easiest solution I know is using the ProtonVPN extension in Brave (don’t know if it’s also available for firefox, but likely is and also don’t know how MullvadVPN browser extension behaves). Other than that you can use split tunneling with the Mullvad Windows App as somebody mentioned before and select to only connect the browser through VPN or set up a SOCKS5 proxy as mentioned here
Is ProtonVPN’s extension the only VPN you know of that will only change the IP address in the browser?
I’ve been doing a lot of searching and I found this which specifically states that only the Chrome web browser will have its IP changed and all other apps will be left untouched , but AFAIK Hotspot shield doesn’t have a good rep:
ProtonVPN is what I use, so I never had the need to check for alternatives. As I said using ProtonVPN extension is the easiest solution I know. Mullvad extension might also do it, but I never used it, so I don’t know much about it.
That said, I would also advise you to stick to the PG recommendations for VPNs.
If anyone has any other suggestions I’m all ears!