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Comment by EZ-E | Hacker News Reader

This app works by connecting to a VPN. From experience, user experience on these kind of apps using a VPN is pretty poor (for example, ad blockers)

I believe keeping VPN connected drains the battery because some of the device's chips cannot "sleep"

A VPN-based app also disconnects when going from Wi-FI to cellular.

Worse, when going from cellular to WiFi (ie: going back home) with a VPN on, the iPhone just keeps using the mobile network until the VPN is disconnected

These apps usually try to auto-connect to VPN but when your connection is spotty, it becomes a very annoying, you have to kill the app, disconnect the vpn manually etc

As user you're left manually putting the VPN on/off constantly if you're on the move

It's definitively not a "set and forget thing". I wish Apple could give a way for ad-blockers and this kind of apps to function normally without using a VPN as a crutch

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I’ve been using openvpn on iOS for about a year, and this 1.1.1.1 app for a day now, and I can guarantee that most of the connectivity issues described are not true. [edit: for me, of course. sorry, didn't mean to discredit parent comment like that. just wanted to add my perspective.]

- it automatically switches networks, both to and from WiFi

- it does not disconnect when switching

- the 1.1.1.1 app does not make anything more spotty or unreliable; it’s just DNS. Openvpn yes, but this app clearly not.

As for the battery issue: could very well be true, I have no idea how to test it.

The difference between this app and an actual VPN are clear from using it.

You’re right, that’s because (I think) this is an “on-demand” VPN, which basically only connects as needed, and allows for switching between Wi-Fi and cellular. It also shouldn’t drain more battery, since it’s not keeping the connection alive when the device is asleep.

I wish there was an option in OpenVPN to not use connection on SSID/network xyz. I have static IP at home and use dyndns for DNS resolution with service specific subdomains. Then, using forwarder at home I create split DNS to point to local device for public domain. It currently doesn't work as I combined domain for VPN and another service out of laziness after moving VPN to physical box.

All that said, I don't need to VPN while at home to home network and prefer a little more granularity instead wifi or cell only. I believe this could be where battery drain would come from, at least in my case as the client constantly retries at home though it will never resolve the proper host internally cause I am lazy admin.

'the 1.1.1.1 app does not make anything more spotty or unreliable; it’s just DNS. Openvpn yes, but this app clearly not.'

Not entirely true, in my experience it really fucks with your ability to connect to public hotspots (ex. airports, airplanes, trains, coffee shops) which took me a while to realize

Well this is normal if those network rely on their special DNS servers to connect you.

It's not cloudflare you should blame here, but those providers

Is blame really relevant?

I think it is, as they don't follow any standard if they return wrong DNS answers, and they might mess with user's systems

Because it obscures the source address for DNS queries, it will mess with split-horizon DNS and other systems that give different answers in different places. You might be surprised how many that is.

It’s not a “real” VPN. I’m not sure exactly how much it does, but everything but the actual DNS queries happen on-device, with other network connections not touching CloudFlare servers.

It just acts as both server and client. The issues described still apply

Not quite. There’s no VPN tunnel - no IPSec tunnel is being set up, even on loopback.

The reason the “VPN” icon appears is because VPN profiles are how you override iOS network settings on unmanaged devices: which can include just DNS. Any time a profile is ‘active’, the icon appears.

You could generate your own unsigned profile to do the same, if you were so inclined.

Having tried it, my biggest gripe is the DNS query log stored in the app. This should be optional.

It can be a privacy feature. It allows you to see exactly what the apps on your device are connecting to.

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