How to set up a VPN on Windows, macOS, iPhone and Android

Installing a VPN today is a three-minute job. Download the official app from the provider's website, sign in with the credentials you created at checkout, and hit the big connect button. That is the happy path on every operating system.

The setting almost everyone forgets to enable is the kill switch. If your VPN connection drops for a moment, the kill switch prevents any traffic leaking out on your real IP address. It is off by default in a surprising number of apps.

On iPhone and Android, allow the VPN app to add its configuration profile the first time it asks — otherwise the VPN cannot actually route your traffic. On iOS this is a system-level prompt from the OS itself, not something the provider can bypass.

For routers, use the provider's own setup script if one exists. Manual OpenVPN configuration on consumer routers is still fiddly and produces slower speeds than a dedicated VPN app on the device.