How to Split Tunnel VPN Traffic

If you are a VPN user, then you are most likely very concerned about your privacy. It is true that VPNs are pretty much the best tool you can use to protect yourself from surveillance and tracking while surfing the web. However, if you’ve had enough experience, then you must also know that being connected to a VPN all the time has its downsides.

Connecting to a VPN server means increasing the distance between you and the website you want to visit, which translates into a longer response time. If your provider doesn’t have any servers in your region, then you may also be unable to access content that’s only distributed in your locations. Not to mention that to access other devices connected to your LAN you’ll have to turn the connection off, which is a major waste of time and is very annoying if you have to do it constantly.

All these problems discourage people from using VPNs all the time, and some even decide to quit them for good. But this doesn’t have to be the case; there is a way you can have more control over your internet traffic and exploit the benefits of using a VPN at the exact moment you need it. It is called VPN Split Tunneling, and it’s very easy to use.

Best VPNs for Split Tunneling

Multi-platform Compatible
256-AES Encryption
PRICE	$5 for 1 month with code "best10VPN"	$6.95 a month
Website Rating	9.9	8.8
24/7 Live Chat
Residential / Dedicated IP for permanent streaming access
Has Mobile App + PC / Mac Support
Stealth VPN / Advanced Obfuscation techniques
Visit VPN Provider	Visit TorGuard	Visit PIA

What Is Split Tunneling and How Can You Benefit From It?

Simply put, split tunneling is the act of splitting your internet traffic to decide which apps or devices can connect to the VPN while letting all that’s left to establish a regular connection to the internet. Normally, this is done to keep certain online activity private while also keeping the rest of the traffic unaffected by VPNs slowdowns or the downsides of using an IP different from yours.

Split tunneling is particularly convenient for users who want to be able to toggle their anonymity at will in a very specific manner. With this tool, a VPN can be configured to work only when doing activities that handle delicate data such as confidential documents, e-commerce credentials and things like that. Among the many things you can do with split tunneling, you’ll find you can:

• Be sure your privacy is protected when it’s needed and still enjoy your internet service’s top speed on the situations where it’s needed.
• Access every device connected to your local network while still connected to a VPN server and save the time you’d spend connecting and disconnecting to it.
• Save VPN bandwidth by excluding all the apps and devices that don’t require an anonymous connection.
• Connect devices that you want to bypass geo-restrictions with to the VPN, like game consoles or TVs while keeping your other devices unaffected.

Split Tunneling Types

As you’ve seen, split tunneling is one of the most powerful options a VPN can provide you. Configuring your service to split tunnel VPN traffic is not usually a major feat, but depending on the results you’re expecting, you might stumble upon a complicated set of steps.

There are many ways in which split tunneling can be performed, and each of them requires different resources and has a different setup process:

Common Split Tunneling

This one is basically a split tunneling technique that depends on the operative system you’re using. Every major OS has a different way of enabling Split tunneling even if you’ve installed the same VPN provider’s software in each of them. Configuring this is a very tedious process that requires some technical knowledge so we won’t be covering it.

Based on Device

This one responds to the need of choosing which devices get to connect to the VPN. This type of tunneling only makes sense if your VPN software runs on your routing device, be it a Wi-Fi router, a switch or anything similar. Most of the time it is resumed to listing the MAC addresses of the devices you want to tunnel in a specific field on the settings of the router.

Based on Application

This is perhaps the easiest of them all. To use it you only need to enable the right options in your VPN client software, we will explain how to do this with more detail below. It doesn’t let you discriminate between devices, but it lets you tunnel specific applications installed in your OS.

Based on Destination

With this kind of split tunneling, you basically establish connection rules based on the IP addresses of the sites and services you want to access via VPN. It is the most complicated way to perform tunneling, and it’s very inefficient, so we will neither cover it nor recommend it.

How to Set Up Split Tunneling With an Application

As we said, this is the easiest way to split your VPN connection and get the most out of it. The steps aren’t really complicated, so you shouldn’t have much trouble following them:

Download and Install a VPN Client

To be able to split tunnel VPN traffic, first, you have to be subscribed to a VPN service. Normally, we’d recommend you to choose services with certain features to make sure you’re getting the best protection and the fastest speeds available. Unfortunately, not many VPN providers have a split tunneling option on their desktop or mobile applications, so before you start looking for speeds and protocols, make sure you’re hiring a service that does have this feature. We recommend TorGuard and IPVanish for this.

Find the Correct Option

The next step consists in identifying the menu that lets you manage all the options related to split tunneling. Be aware that split tunneling is not a very common practice among regular VPN users, so it is likely that you’ll find it in a section with other advanced settings. After you’ve found it, all that’s left is enabling it and start configuring. Note that some VPNs will require you connect to a server before letting you enable this option.

Configuration

Now that you’ve enabled split tunneling, there are two ways in which you can pick the traffic that will go through the VPN server. Depending on the options provided by your VPN service, you can either route every app’s traffic through the VPN by default and then select the ones who will be the exceptions, or you can do the opposite and have all the apps connect to the internet as they would normally do and, from them, select a group of special applications that will be routed through the VPN. We recommend you go for the first way since it’s the safest.

Enjoy

You can now start using your apps knowing that you’ll be protected in the situations where you are the most vulnerable and enjoy the full potential of your internet service when it is more necessary. Remember that this still doesn’t let you decide which devices connect to the VPN, so if you have the same client in your other gadgets, then you will have to go through this process again to get the same benefits.

Remember to Put Privacy First

To split tunnel VPN traffic is a very good practice if you want to get rid of some of the annoyances of using a VPN. Nevertheless, you have to remember that by doing so, you’re leaving parts of your digital ecosystem exposed to surveillance, hackers, and trackers from advertising companies that are always hunting your private data.

We encourage you to adopt split tunneling only if you fully understand the way VPNs work, and you are aware of the risks you are taking by accessing the internet without proper protection. Almost every major media service will track your IP address and behavior in the time you spend signed in their websites, so try to exclude as few connections as you can from your VPN service.