My phone (Android 13, crDroid) doesn’t have any kind of persistent notification. Just the key icon and the optional toggle in the notification toggles. I double checked my Wireguard notification settings, the app doesn’t even have any notification channels to toggle.
Clearly, VPNs can be built without notifications, at least on modern Android. I don’t know why alternatives are showing these notifications, but I’m guessing they’re doing a lot more than just “route this packet through this tunnel”.
I checked playstore reviews of wireguard, and people are complaining that wireguard stops working after a while. Which makes me think. For wider compatibility and persistent background tasks, you do need one to stay alive.
Perhaps, but this article is specifically about the Pixel which, to my knowledge, doesn’t have a task killer as aggressive as some other vendors have. The closer you come to Google/AOSP Android, the lower the probability that your tasks will get killed at random is my experience.
My phone (Android 13, crDroid) doesn’t have any kind of persistent notification. Just the key icon and the optional toggle in the notification toggles. I double checked my Wireguard notification settings, the app doesn’t even have any notification channels to toggle.
Clearly, VPNs can be built without notifications, at least on modern Android. I don’t know why alternatives are showing these notifications, but I’m guessing they’re doing a lot more than just “route this packet through this tunnel”.
I checked playstore reviews of wireguard, and people are complaining that wireguard stops working after a while. Which makes me think. For wider compatibility and persistent background tasks, you do need one to stay alive.
Because (from what I’ve read) battery optimization may still kill them, depending on the phone.
Perhaps, but this article is specifically about the Pixel which, to my knowledge, doesn’t have a task killer as aggressive as some other vendors have. The closer you come to Google/AOSP Android, the lower the probability that your tasks will get killed at random is my experience.