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Understanding Hybrid VPN


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Hello guys,

I updated to latest firmware yesterday excited to try out VPN as originally it was one of my reasons for choosing this router. I was messing around with Hybrid VPN for a while yesterday and I want to make sure my understanding and use of it is correct. If it is correct I am probably going to get a refund for VPN account I just purchased as experience feels lackluster.

After getting the VPN account (ExpressVPN) I input the details into the advanced section and it connected. At this point I had assumed everything on my network would be under the VPN. To my surprise nothing was. It took me a while to realize I apparently have to add every device manually on the right side. IMO the way it looked was the right side was to choose devices NOT TO VPN. Is this correct everything needs be added manually or is there a way to have it like I thought it was going to work. I am not sure how many devices most people have connected but my Network map is almost unreadable due to how many devices I have so I feel would be easy to miss adding one to list.. 

In order to test the VPN, I added a few of my most used devices. Right off the bat, 20 Mbps seems really slow. Can this be improved in a future update? I read this is hardware limited in another thread? I get 120Mbps and on my PC if using the desktop app instead of Hybrid VPN I easily get 80-90Mbps which would be reasonable. I was downloading a file on my phone yesterday and found myself frustrated with the speed and logging in and turning off VPN anytime I want to download a large file seems like a hassle.

Another thing I am not sure I set up correctly. Before ever using the VPN I had set up my router to use Cloudflare DNS and if I do a DNS leak test with VPN on it still shows all the Cloudfare stuff and that it is leaking. Is it actually leaking or is due to me using the DNS setting like that. I had assumed VPN would override it? Let me know if that is not true and if some settings need to be modified?

I know this is mostly I guess a negative post but besides the VPN my experience with the router has been otherwise great. Love most of the other features. Due to mostly loving it is why I would cancel the VPN before swapping to a different router. 

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Hey, welcome to the forum!

The problem with most VPN clients on routers is that they apply to every single device without the customisation there available enabling you to choose which devices are VPN'd which can lead to slower devices, lag etc let alone individual services on those devices. The idea of Hybrid VPN is it gives you that flexibility to choose. You're correct in that it doesn't blanket VPN every device on the network. This was the same on our previous firmware. Adding devices on the right you can decide either which devices are VPN'd completely or go even further and VPN specific services on a device which gives you a great deal of power/control. It has been requested before that we add the ability to VPN all devices so this will likely come later on. 

You're correct in that it is mostly a hardware limitation on the speed so unsure if we can raise this in any future updates though we will of course look into the possibility. 

Were you doing this test on a device you added to the VPN? Which service did you apply to it?

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Hi Fraser,

Yes, I did the test on my desktop which was added to the list. I used the expressVPN test on their website. Tried some other ones as well all with about same result. 

hmm as far as the limitation to the speed I will have to be very selective about which devices I VPN I guess. Thanks for the reply

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5 hours ago, Wolfie said:

Could you please tell me how to change that or check which I'm using? 

On the Hybrid VPN page under 'Information' on the 'VPN Setup' panel, you'll see a line called 'Protocol'. That will say if you're using TCP or UDP. You can change this when you go to VPN Setup on the first page.

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5 hours ago, Netduma Jack said:

On the Hybrid VPN page under 'Information' on the 'VPN Setup' panel, you'll see a line called 'Protocol'. That will say if you're using TCP or UDP. You can change this when you go to VPN Setup on the first page.

It appears to say TCP. Correct me if wrong here, but assumed the basic section was only for options related to purevpn and HMA and that none of those boxes would affect me using advanced anyway?

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dev tun
fast-io
persist-key
persist-tun
nobind
remote usa-dallas-ca-version-2.expressnetw.com 1195

remote-random
pull
comp-lzo no
tls-client
verify-x509-name Server name-prefix
ns-cert-type server
key-direction 1
route-method exe
route-delay 2
tun-mtu 1500
fragment 1300
mssfix 1450
verb 3
cipher AES-256-CBC
keysize 256
auth SHA512
sndbuf 524288
rcvbuf 524288
auth-user-pass

Here is the top part
the rest of it is just all the begin certificate etc.

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