WireGuard

I’ve been on the hunt for a good VPN app for iOS for years now. I used ProtonVPN for a while. Then I found out about WireGuard through Mullvad VPN. I read the white paper and was sold. The test against OpenVPN near the end of the paper made OpenVPN look like a dinosaur. Much higher throughput, much lower ping, and newer encryption standards makes for blazing speeds, instant connections, and greater security. So I setup an account with Mullvad VPN and loaded the config file for all 108 of their WireGuard servers. I’ve been using this app for over a month without many issues. The new update seemed to fix the timeout issue where I’d have to re-handshake or choose another server occasionally. I occasionally have the same issue with WireGuard on my Mac using the Mullvad app. So I think it’s a protocol issue, and not an issue with this app. Could be a keying issue with Mullvad. Also, make sure that you tap edit on your server and enable both options for On-demand Activation. That way it never disconnects when you lock your phone or switch between WiFi and Cellular. There needs to be a global On-demand Activation switch. It’s annoying to have to do it individually on each server. All things considered, WireGuard is off to a great start for being in beta still. I’m here to stay.

As proven by my own experience—Absolutely the single best app for using your WireGuard VPN protocol profiles. The connection is stable and stays connected for days to the tunnel through multiple hops on and off of cellular to and from WiFi networks. It is open source, well supported and absolutely brilliant. This is an incredible asset and wonderfully executed. To all those involved in bringing this app and WireGuard to iOS, thank you! I am an advocate of using VPNs and the OpenVPN protocol and the OpenVPN Connect app for iOS, however, the release of this app changes everything. While this app is not the first WireGuard app in the AppStore, it is the only one I would ever trust—as it was created with the same transparency and openness as the WireGuard protocol itself.

This is not so much a Wireguard problem as it is an Apple problem, but all VPN apps in iOS are vulnerable to the tunnel breaking during auto-update of the VPN app itself. VPN APPS SHOULD NOT AUTO-UPDATE!!!!! How does iOS not have auto-updates configurable per app? VPN apps should NOT AUTO-UPDATE WHILE IN USE WITHOUT USER APPROVAL! VPN auto-update breaks the tunnel even while actively in use, unless iOS is keeping the tunnel alive while removing the VPN GUI indicator from the status bar... What the h3ll Apple?!??

[UPDATE2] After two months usage I must confess I'm still impressed. With that said i do have one concern and thats excessive data usage. For the past several years ive been averaging less then 1 GB a month. Since installing wireguard my cellular data usage has exploded. Last month my cellular usage exceeded 5GB and this month its on track to exceed 7GB. Currently i have no explanation as i have not installed any new apps or changed my cellular behavior. My only recourse is to go back to Open VPN and see if my data usage goes back to normal. [UPDATE] After a month of usage i must confess this app & protocol has exceeded all my expectations. To date It has NEVER failed to smoothly transition between wifi and cellular. Ive never had to reboot and performance is predictable based on which VPN server i choose. Im now so confident of its ability i finally removed my OpenVPN client. As a long term (2+ years) OpenVPN user i must confess i tired of all the issues related to transitioning between cellular & wifi. Those days are now in the past. Simple, reliable and trust worthy is what i expect of VPN software and thus far Wireguard has delivered. Thus far i am extremely impressed.

Wireguard is ideal for people who want to set up their own VPN infrastructure rather than trusting someone else’s. Much, much simpler than IPSec or OpenVPN, and very fast. I like that the app can be configured to auto connect on WiFi, cellular, or both. And that you can whitelist or blacklist WiFi SSIDs. However, since upgrading to iOS 13, I’ve found the VPN periodically stalls, preventing any traffic at all. I can get it going again by restarting the tunnel. Not sure if this is a bug in the app or in iOS 13, but it’s pretty frustrating. This wasn’t a problem in iOS 12.x.