VPN Kill Switch

Avoid IP Leaks & Stay Protected

The hide.me VPN macOS and Windows apps are equipped with a firewall that limits internet connectivity exclusively to the VPN servers. So if the VPN connection suddenly drops for any reason, the Kill Switch is triggered and keeps you safe from accidental IP leaks. You have the option to securely re-establish the VPN connection without risking to leak your real IP address or re-establish your regular Internet connection. These options limit the risk of unwanted IP leaks.

hide.me Takes Your Privacy Seriously

Kill Switch is one of these features that we implemented to ensure users’ privacy is always protected. Unlike many other VPN providers, we do not simply disable the network adapter when the connection drops. Shutting down the adapter altogether leaves room for IP leaks and does not tackle edge cases like if the application crashes or the operating system fails.

hide.me's protection is active as soon as you establish the first VPN connection. It stays active during reconnection and is only lifted if the user explicitly confirms it in the Kill Switch notification or disabled the feature. On Windows, we went to the extent of writing our network driver, to hold up to the promise.

How hide.me VPN Helps to Avoid IP Leaks

At hide.me VPN, we are always hard at work to provide the best security features to our users. To help avoid IP Leaks of all kinds, we have added ‘StealthGuard’ feature. It is an additional layer of security to keep your online activities hidden at all times. Using this feature, you can limit apps to the VPN connection and avoid accidental leaks in case the VPN is not active. With StealthGuard apps can be restricted to VPN without third-party firewalls.

How to Setup A Kill Switch?

We suggest all our users to enable the Kill Switch. For mobile users, the Kill Switch implementation keeps the VPN connection active (“Always-on”) and effectively avoids IP leaks. Similarly in our Desktop apps the feature is enabled by default.

Here’s how you can enable Kill Switch feature in easy steps:

Step 1

Download hide.me VPN app on your device.

Step 2

Open ‘Settings’ by clicking on the ‘Cloak’ icon.

Step 3

Check the box in front of ‘Kill Switch’ feature to always keep it enabled