i feel more comfortable using firewall in my phone to have better control over what connects to internet. i only allow the trusted foss and privacy focused apps to have internet connection.
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.
Although it's a bit more of a hassle you can use RethinkDNS to wall of certain sites or apps and import your preferred VPN connections from Mullvad. So both can be done at the same time
RethinkDNS even lets you run multiple VPNs at the same time and use routing to determine which traffic goes where.
Mullvad with doh. You’re fine.
E: what device needs a third party firewall?
a VPN server has its own firewall.