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Can you keep VPN on all the time? How to always keep VPN on?

7 min. read

Updated onOctober 4, 2023

updated onOctober 4, 2023

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It’s a well-known fact that aVPNcan solve a wide variety of privacy and security issues, but can you keep yourVPNon all the time? Even casual users can appreciate that aVPNcan save you from a lot of hassle.

Is your ISP snooping around your connection orthrottling your bandwidth?VPNcan take care of that. Want to bypass censorship orgeographical restrictions? You can count onVPNto circumvent those.

However, some users believe thatVPNusage should have a more occasional nature. In turn, they only useVPNsas needed, then turn them off whenever their online activity isn’t worth hiding from authorities.

If you’re curious if it’s possible to keep yourVPNon all the time, then the answer is yes.VPNsoffer a lot of configuration options that enable you to run theVPNat startup and automatically connect to the best server.

There are even kill switches that turn your default Internet connection off if noVPNis detected. So, yes, there are plenty of ways to make sure yourVPNconnection stays on at all times.

However, the real concern here is whether or not you should keep yourVPNon all the time. Keep reading if you want to find out.

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Should you keep your VPN on all the time?

1. If you frequently use public WiFi

Using public WiFican be both a treat and a real threat.Free Internetis never something to turn down, so many overlook the importance of keeping themselves safe in this type of environment.

Public WiFi networks serve as honeypots to any ill-intended user. The moment you walk in without any means of protection, you’re virtually painting a huge target on your back.

Furthermore, the thrill of using the Internet without having to pay for it might make you forget about using protection.

Therefore, even if you do have aVPNin this case, you might forget to turn it on before you connect.

However, that wouldn’t happen if you had yourVPNon, waiting on you to connect to that public WiFi so it cansecureyour connection and protect yourprivacy.

2. Does your ISP throttle your bandwidth?

If you remember paying for a lightning-fast Internet plan and you notice that your connection isn’t nearly as fast as advertised, your ISP might bethrottling your bandwidth.

This means that even though your connection should take up to 1000 MB/s, your ISP might limit it to, say, 5 MB/s.

The reason your ISP might resort to doing that is usually cost reduction, or to circumvent network congestion instead of fixing the routing or managing subnets properly.

More often than not, bandwidth throttling isn’t occasional and you should be able to notice it all the time. It also happens that your bandwidth might be only limited during traffic peak hours.

Regardless, it’s still unfair and annoying when it happens. If you want to take your mind off of it, just connect to a fastVPNserver, leave yourVPNon at all times, and forget it even exists.

3. Are you downloading torrents?

It’s already common knowledge that downloading torrents could land you a warm spot on many lists. And not the good ones, either. Due to various websites that facilitate pirated content through torrenting.

Whatever the reason is, you’d be better offdownloading torrents while behind aVPN. Your ISP might be actively monitoring for torrenting activities and mark you with a red flag, even if your download is legit.

As we’ve said before, the thrill of downloading something fast might blindside you and you may forget about protection. Therefore, leaving yourVPNon at all times might spare you the headaches.

More so, we also advise you to keep the kill switch feature toggled on at all times, too.

YourVPNconnection might fail and your device will most probably default to a previously known-to-work connection that is notVPN-secured.

A kill switch will prevent this from happening by cutting your Internet access if noVPNconnection is detected.

4. Frequently making online payments

If the stars align all wrong, your payment information can be intercepted by wrongdoers and before you know it, your money might be all gone.

Using aVPNwon’t necessarily prevent that from happening all the time, but it will certainly make it infinitely harder for the perpetrators.

If you’re a busy individual who doesn’t like to over-complicate things and keep a clean shop, you should keep yourVPNall the time.

It will save you the hassle of manually activating it each time you need to make a transaction.

5. Wanting to unblock geo-restricted or censored content?

If you feel that online censorship andgeo-restrictionsare unfair, then you probably learned thatVPNcan bypass them without a hiccup. Take US or UK Netflix for instance.

If you’re not physically located in the right region, you can’t access either of them. However, a trustworthyVPNcan help you bypass these limitations in no time.

In this case, leaving yourVPNrunning all the time can do no harm. In addition to helping you access restricted content, it can also shield you from hackers, your ISP, or any data-seizing government agencies.

6. Worried about your online privacy?

This should be at the top of the list, but, as we’ve said earlier, most users regardVPN‘s utility as merely occasional. As a result, not many are concerned with their onlineprivacy, when in fact this should be their first concern.

But, to get back on tracks, if you’re worried about your onlineprivacy, then you should definitely leave yourVPNrunning at all times. This will make it way more difficult for anyone to track your every move online.

Sure,VPNmight slow down your Internet speed a bit, but in our opinion, that’s a tiny price to pay for regaining what’s rightfully yours: yourprivacy.

On the other hand, if your ISP also has the unfortunate habit of throttling your bandwidth (see scenario #2), you’ll circumvent it right away.VPNsare popular forcurbing packet lossandimproving in-game pingwithout an effort.

How to keep my VPN running all the time?

Although we’ve used Private Internet Access for our guide, mostVPNservices have these settings as well. Some of them might have different names or descriptions, but they should basically do the same thing.

Private Internet Access

All in all, you need to make sure that your VPN runs at startup and automatically connects to a secure server.

More so, you need to enable the kill switch as well, so that your PC doesn’t send out any unencrypted traffic in the split seconds between booting and connecting to the VPN server.

Sure you can keep your VPN on all the time

To sum it up, there’s nothing wrong with keeping your connection secure and your online privacy safe 24/7. As long as you don’t use a VPN that offers limited bandwidth, everything should be fine.

Regardless of what your online activity consists of, keeping a VPN on all the time should only improve the quality of your connection.

You might experience a bit ofInternet slow downat times, but all in all, it’s a small price to pay for a better, more secure connection.

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Can you keep VPN on all the time? How to always keep VPN on?#

Should you keep your VPN on all the time?#

1. If you frequently use public WiFi#

2. Does your ISP throttle your bandwidth?#

3. Are you downloading torrents?#

4. Frequently making online payments#

5. Wanting to unblock geo-restricted or censored content?#

6. Worried about your online privacy?#

How to keep my VPN running all the time?#

Private Internet Access#

Sure you can keep your VPN on all the time#