Hi All, I am weighing the security of a firewall vs VPN for my blackberry. Currently I have NoRoot Firewall and Private Internet Access VPN. Now the tech support for PIA VPN says their product does function as a firewall. And it is stateful. Don't know if that is just promo-speak/we're-the-best-speak .But I have relied on my firewall for sometime. The PIA VPN tech support guy says apps could connect out before the VPN connects, and that's the only hole. So I have set it up in Settings that 1) the vpn auto-connects, and also 2) to Block connections without vpn. And then I restarted the phone, so no app connection remains without vpn. What do you guys think? Am I safer using the vpn this way? Or should I go back to NoRoot Firewall?
pia's fw is at server level. it protects the server you're connected to. so, technically speaking, you're behind a fw and yes, it's better than nr fw on your android. so, follow pia's advice.
I'd like to weigh in here. I actually use Comodo's firewall to force my daily used applications to only connect through my VPN. I should warn you, DON'T do this in the global rules and DON'T do this for every application you have either. Just your web browsers, I.M. clients, cloud storage clients and maybe a few other things too. Don't expect this to work with everything. A lot of non-steam games won't be able to connect to the internet if you force them to connect through your VPN this way....In the latest build of CIS and CFW PIA's killswitch works with comodo's firewall prescient, but that wasn't always the case. In short, this procedure is no longer necessary to have a VPN killswitch if you use comodo firewall with PIA VPN Here's an article that tells you how to do it if you're paranoid like me. https://proprivacy.com/guides/build-your-own-vpn-kill-switch-in-windows-comodo
