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Practical wireguard VPN on Android
I tried to use my Wireguard VPN on Android, and, it sucks!
I installed https://f-droid.org/packages/com.wireguard.android/ thinking that would be "the" wireguard app. I configured it with my connection details and confirmed that it's being used.
To turn it on, I have to launch the Wireguard app and press the toggle. The app itself is very spartan, so there's no features like automatically re-enabling the VPN at certain times or after a delay. There is a drawer tile for VPNs (with a key icon), but this doesn't turn on the VPN when you click it. Instead it makes you pick the Wireguard app from a menu, and then launches it. It's really not convenient to toggle the VPN on and off, so I tried leaving it always on.
A lot of sites these days block VPNs. Many websites don't open in the browser and some apps break. For example, the LinkedIn app doesn't work, because even though my VPN is in Europe and the exit point is in the US, LinkedIn redirects all VPNs to the Chinese version of their site which does not allow access to your LinkedIn account.
I thought that there would at least be something like the Orbot app, where you can designate that individual apps should go through the VPN or not. The toggling doesn't really make sense, because when I globally turn off my VPN to use some anti-VPN app or site, all other apps could send packets in the background, revealing my true IP and defeating the purpose of the VPN. This setup seems to me completely unusable in practice.
Is this how people normally use VPNs on Android? Or am I missing something? I completely ignored all Play Store VPN apps a priori, since I assume it's full of proprietary apps that vacuum up all your data and sell it to third parties.
2 answers
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RethinkDNS includes a WireGuard option since v0.5.5. The development team was sponsored in 2020 by Mozilla's now-defunct "Builders Program."
Rethink was originally an on-device "VPN"[1] with a DNS filter and app firewall, basically a Pi-Hole analogue for your Android device, but the scope later expanded to include WireGuard.
To add a WireGuard instance:
- Tap "⚙ Configure" at the bottom navigation.
- Tap "⟀ Proxy" item in the middle of the screen.
- Tap "Setup WireGuard."
- Tap the ⨁ to add a new one.
I don't know of any time-of-day settings, but you can set certain apps to bypass the filters. You appear to be able to create multiple WG settings, so it might support different apps bound to different connections.
Available on Google Play or on F-Droid.
There's a new WireGuard app on F-Droid called WG Tunnel, probably owing to dissatisfaction with the official app.
It claims to sport a quick toggle in the drawer, and you can split-tunnel by application. It's not clear to me whether you can set time-of-day triggers to use the tunnel(s), but they can trigger when you change networks.
Features
- Add tunnels via .conf file, zip, manual entry, or QR code
- Auto connect to VPN based on Wi-Fi SSID, ethernet, or mobile data
- Split tunneling by application with search
- WireGuard support for kernel and userspace modes
- Always-On VPN support
- Export tunnels to zip
- Quick tile support for VPN toggling
- Static shortcuts support for primary tunnel for automation integration
- Intent automation support for all tunnels
- Automatic service restart after reboot
- Battery preservation measures
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