it's 2020. if you're still relying on vpn connection to provide encryption, you are doing it wrong. (I understand there are certain cases you have to deal with unencrypted traffic, but those should be really rare now).
you don't have any control of what protocols your apps use and if they're encrypted or not
If you are talking about apps, recent versions of Android and iOS both deny apps to use unencrypted connections, with only a few exceptions (like browsers)