Quick question: I have a VPN set up on my phone, laptop, and iPad. When using the mobile hotspot (in which the internet is routed through the phone), should I leave my VPN running on my laptop and tablet even though it’s still running on my phone? Or is it safe to turn them off and the phone will still create a secure connection through the hotspot?
Nop VPN is not shared via Mobile Hotspot.
Like - you start VPN on iPhone, and then create hot-spot - it won’t have VPN - check IP yourself.
you will need to run the vpn on devices that are connected to your mobile hotspot. iphones (and most android phones) do not upstream vpn connections via hotspot.
Even if the device providing the hotspot would send your data through the VPN tunnel, disabling the VPN on your leeching devices would mean that yor data would travel unprotected between that device and the hotspot.
I understand not everyone cares about that, but unprotected wireless data leaves quite an attack surface.
What sort of phone do you have?
I had to do a similar thing once. I think I just ran open VPN on my phone and laptop, and I tethered the phone to the laptop.
Internet was mobile data on the phone.
Your VPN could not be shared through hotspot
You need a VPN to be running on the actual device being used to browse
iPhone SE with iOS 12.4
Leave the vpn on it’ll give you the solid protection while doing hotspot or whatever requiring internet usage.