VPNs are great for protecting your privacy and security, but they can also be a huge drain on battery life. Apple has improved the VPN settings in iOS 10 so that it doesn’t have to connect every time you open an app, which has helped with this problem.
However, if you want to ensure that your iPhone VPN is never turned off, there are a few things you can do. There are also quick and simple ways to check that your VPN connection is still running if you are concerned that it has switched off. Here are our top tips below to prevent your VPN from ever being turned off.
Make Sure the Auto-Connect option is switched on
If you go into the iPhone built-in VPN settings on your device, there is an option to automatically connect when joining a new network. This will ensure that the VPN connects every time you move onto another wifi network without having to manually do it yourself. If this isn’t selected then whenever you are not connected to one of these networks, the VPN won’t be able to reconnect itself unless it is manually turned back on again by you.
You can also go into the VPN app itself, and ensure that the VPN’s auto-connect option is switched on. Most VPN services offer auto-connect when connecting to wi-fi or when you launch your device. So, by having one of these options activated, you can ensure your VPN is not switched off.
Deactivate the kill switch
The kill switch is a great feature that turns off your internet connection if the VPN server disconnects. However, if you activate the kill switch, it sometimes won’t reconnect once the VPN server connection is reestablished.
By disabling the kill switch, you can stop this from happening and ensure that, if your VPN connection drops, you can quickly connect to another VPN server so that you don’t have to endure a lack of internet access, or worse, unintentionally surf the web without a secure VPN connection.
Switch off Low Power and Low Data Modes
If you switch off your low power and low data modes, the VPN will never turn itself off automatically. With these modes enabled, the VPN switching itself off is likely to be something that would happen if your phone was about to run out of battery or cellular data allowance for example.
Instead of turning these features off completely though, there are some other ways around this which mean that it won’t cause problems with running a VPN connection. You can customize Low Power Mode so that it only disables the non-crucial apps rather than stopping them all together.
Run Your VPN Connections over IKEv2
The IKEv2 (Internet Key Exchange) protocol is the most commonly used protocol for iPhone users. This version of the protocol offers a number of advantages over its predecessor including being more efficient when establishing connections and less likely to be blocked by firewalls.
If you are using an older version of the protocol or another VPN protocol, it can cause trouble with keeping your connection alive if there are any interruptions at all. This is because it will probably have to reconnect again during setup after any disruptions occur.
Hi, I'm Madeleine. I'm a British writer with a global background, currently based in the UK.
I have always been interested in the online world and how it connects people worldwide. My keen interest in the internet led me to ...
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