this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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Privacy
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“VPN is useless on mobile, a firewall is better.”
What? A vpn tunnels your traffic to and from an external server so all your isp (or anyone else in the middle) sees is encrypted traffic to your vpn provider. A firewall blocks incoming connections to your device, either silently (black hole/ no response) or loudly (connection refused).
They are two different things, what exactly are you trying to do?
You're really going to argue with The Guy On YouTube??
I am indeed also confused.
On mobile, firewalls are often created by creating a local virtual VPN that actually works as a firewall. As a result, you can only have one or the other enabled at a time.
If you’re on your own trusted network, a firewall is probably the better choice. If you’re on an untrusted network, using a VPN to a trusted network is a better choice, and usually you can set up a firewall somewhere along the VPN chain as well.
Why would you need a firewall on a trusted Network?
To block apps like calculator or acrobat (example) that doesnt need to be connecting to the internet
Oooh, yeah. On android that's a local-vpn. I've had only minimal luck with those.