Guides
Setting up and using a VPN
Practical instructions, separate from the ranking: how to install a VPN on each platform, what the settings actually do, and how to tell whether it is working.
Latest
How to uninstall a VPN
Disconnect first, remove the app, then take out what every client leaves behind: the tunnel adapter, the system extension, the profile, and the always-on binding that otherwise keeps a phone offline after the app is gone. Written against Windows 11 26H2, macOS 27, Android 17 and iOS 27.
How to cancel a VPN subscription
Where you bought the subscription decides where it is cancelled, and the provider cannot do it for you if a store took the payment. Turning off renewal, asking for a refund and deleting the account are three steps, in that order, and this page takes them one at a time. Written against the stores of late 2026.
How to set up split tunnelling
How to send some applications or addresses outside the tunnel while everything else stays inside, what every exception costs, and the check that proves the split is the one you asked for. Written against the clients of late 2026 and Android 17.
How to make a VPN connect automatically
The settings that make the tunnel come up without being asked: at login, on any network you have not marked as trusted, and on mobile data. Which of them each platform has, what a trusted network actually grants, and the gap none of them closes on its own. Written against the clients of late 2026.
How to test a VPN kill switch
Three ways to drop the tunnel without asking the client, what has to stop when you do, and how to test the one case most switches skip: the gap between the machine starting and the client connecting. Written against the clients of late 2026.
How to check your VPN is working
Six checks that tell you whether the tunnel is carrying your traffic, in the order that finds the common failures first. None of them needs software beyond a browser, and each one proves one thing and nothing else. Written against the clients of late 2026.
How to use a VPN browser extension
What a provider’s extension covers — the browser and only the browser — the browser’s own store and nothing else, the two settings that decide whether the browser leaks round it, and how to tell it apart from the app. Written against the current Chrome and Firefox.
How to set up a VPN on Fire TV
Which of the two systems your stick runs, because that decides which clients exist at all; the Appstore on the stick and nothing else; the settings Fire OS exposes; and how to confirm the tunnel carries what the stick plays. Written against Fire OS and Vega OS.
How to set up a VPN on Apple TV
The client from the App Store on the set, what tvOS lets a VPN app do and what it plainly does not, how to confirm the tunnel carries the box’s traffic, and when the router is the answer instead. Written against tvOS 27.
How to set up a VPN on Android TV
The client from the Play Store on the set itself, the two system settings a television may or may not expose, and how to confirm that every app on it is inside the tunnel rather than only the one you opened. Written against Google TV on Android TV 16.
How to set up a VPN on a router
When the router is the right place for the tunnel and when it is not, the provider’s configuration file on the firmware’s own VPN client page, DNS for the whole house, and the checks from a device behind it. Written against a router whose firmware has a VPN client page; this guide does not reflash anything.
How to set up a VPN on Linux
The provider’s client from its own repository, the alternative of a configuration file in the system’s own tools, the DNS detail that leaks on Linux more than anywhere else, and the checks from a terminal. Written against Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and NetworkManager.
Nothing links out
Guides are instructions, not funnels. Where a guide names a provider it links to that provider's review, not to a tracked outbound link.