Firefox is routed through the VPN 24/7, everything else as needed.
this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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My day job periodically kills the VPN. I reconnect when next time I notice it. It stays on for like 3 days at a time.
But, since I need it for the day job, the answer to your question is "yes" as in both.
Mullvad on 24/7 except when some things break. My bank app wont allow logins with it for example so i switch it off temporarily for that.
Mine's on 24/7, I feel like it's better to use than not use it. I self host one on a vps over using s commercial one
What are the advantages of self hosting your VPN? Is it to just hide your sessions from your ISP? Also, does it not link the domain (and identity, which I'm assuming you have provided during registration) to your online activity? I thought the whole point of these commercial VPN sellers was that you could "blend in" the traffic, and add enough noise to make any sort of aggregations meaningless.
If you, however, did register and pay for it anonymously, what service is it? The last time I searched for anonymous VPSs, all of them were outside my budget.
I did it because it is cheaper, lets me learn a bit about self hosting and causes me to have less captchas and less websites blocking me, and its also more resistant to any potential VPN bans (my country's already made social media have age verification, I'm sure they'll come for vpns eventually). You're right that I don't have the benefit of blending in but there's still a lot of other ways you can be fingerprinted so that really isn't a huge benefit.
Other way around for me
If a website loads with a VPN, then it doesn't exist?
or
If a website loads without a VPN, then it doesn't exist?
I tend to do only when needed as it conflicts with some of the things I need to access locally on my network.
Mine stays on all the time, except on the odd occasion I have to switch it off (eg. visa applications, paying fines, etc)
Always on a VPN. My house sends all traffic out through one, and I VPN back to my house when I’m out which puts me on the same connection.
Tailscale exit node?
No, a VPN provider that supports WireGuard, plus another WireGuard to get me on my network, and a custom iptables to handle the routing.
Sounds like you rolled your own Tailscale. Good on you!
I trust my ISP more than I trust a VPN. I only need a VPN when I need to appear like I'm in another country. That said, I'm very careful about who my ISP is, I have a choice in who my ISP is, and I pay more for that privilege, and I understand a lot of people don't have that luxury.
Def always on, with a kill switch that disconnects from the network if the VPN isn't active
I use it 24/7 even though I've heard I'm not supposed to. It makes it really obvious to my ISP that I'm using a VPN provider for literally all my traffic.
I think for now I can get by because I'm shacked up with my parents and so the house is producing all kinds of Internet traffic. Mine will still be obviously going to an ISP but it's at least not entirely just my ISP.
I'm sure intel agencies would have their ways to figure things out though. VPN itself is not total anonymity.
I have nonpublic services I host at home so I VPN home anytime I'm out.
I have a docker container for my Linux ISOs with a VPN.
Always on out of spite
Usually on a needed basis. Some pages are blocked where i am and those do get the exception for my regional locking hatred.
I default to on, and turn it off if I need something that is blocking me and there's no workaround.
Although the traffic itself is protected, I find the signal of «I am doing something "secret" right now» to be best avoided both for passive metadata collection as well as active correlation attacks reasons; as well as to avoid leaks by clicking some link or just loading an image from some server that might be more "revealing" than I'd like. I'm not talking about anything super spicy, for example just by being a Lemmy user the image hosts you see more can depend on the comms/instances you use the most often - a pretty small segment.
if i paid for one i would have it on (if i pay for it i might as well use it + more privacy). but, since i just have proton free tier, i turn it on whenever "This content is not available in your region" shows up
(if i pay for it i might as well use it + more privacy)
I think you'd be paying for, but not using, your Internet bandwidth/speeds at that point
I have gigabit and can download through my VPN at 90+ megabytes per second
Edit: oh I glossed over “proton free tier”, yah a paid VPN is definitely going to be much better… I’d never use a free VPN unless it’s to get to my self-hosted stuff.
Mullvad. Always on. Wireguard to access home network remotely
I keep mine on almost always, runs fine so I usually don't bother turning it off.
I always had it on, and got banned from my favorite game server for possible alt-accounts. It's a tight-knit community and the admin fixed it for me a few times until it got annoying. Now I start my game with a shell script that turns off the VPN via CLI before loading so I don't get banned over and over. 90% of everything else goes through a VPN, not because it has to, but because I want my ISP to be blind by default, at least to the degree I can make that happen
When I used Proton or Mullvad I usually had to switch it on and off when needed because of so many issues with sites/games/etc. blocking me. However, the last deal I picked up was for NordVPN and that one I've been able to leave connected at all times without any issue.
I will never ever use Nord or any company that floods every yt channel with sponsored ads
You're seeing ads on YT? oO
The ones the channel themselves have. Sponsor block doesn’t work all the time either if you’re referring to that
Ah, okay. I guess plenty of podcasts and sponsored stuff do include those.
I'm just using vanilla AdBlock for non-Chrome browser to view mainly shorts. Thanks for explaining.
Bro Mullvad has split tunneling for applications you can just do that. Mullvad is superior in every possible way to NordVPN. I mean most VPNs today do a solid job but Mullvad is peak for more reasons than you can shake a stick at.
Split tunneling is not a fix if I need to be in another country to stream the content that I want.
I’ve tried Mullvad multiple times and it’s my favorite for privacy but thats secondary to getting access to the content I want. That’s a personal decision, and I’m not saying it’s the right one for everyone.
On when I need it. Otherwise I’m clicking captchas all day.
Always on for everything
If you have a few things that work better without or don't need the VPN, like some games, a good VPN will have a tunneling feature to let that one thing through while staying on for everything else.
i used to use it 24x7 before but now i just turn it on when i need it since it makes my internet significantly slower.
Mullvad on a router, so always on, because it's nobody's business who I am and what I do and where I do it. In the rare case that I need to use a service that blocks Mullvad, I just use my phone that has their toggleable app.
Depends on where I am and what I'm doing. When on work travel, I VPN home. When I'm home I VPN to work. Outside of that, I don't really use VPNs.
If I really want to cover my tracks, I have other means and methods
I don't use a vpn at all, because I don't need it.
It offers me zero benefit, so why would I ever want one? Just like I don't use cloud storage or a million other services.
Honestly never used one.