Quote from Proton VPN:
Google has known about a bug that breaks VPN apps for 7 months, leaving users exposed with no warning or error, just a VPN app that stopped working in the background.
If you’re using ANY VPN on Android, you can help us by getting Google’s attention to fix it.
We first reported this bug to Google in September 2025.
Others like Mullvad and Wireguard reported it even earlier, in August.
Google’s response? “I don’t see anything unusual.”
The bug corrupts Android’s network stack at the system level after a VPN update, causing users to blame their VPN provider.
Restarting the app doesn’t help, with the only fix being a full device reboot or VPN app reinstall, something which most users never figure out.
This affects several VPN providers on Android 16, and only Google has the access to diagnose it properly.
After 7 months of waiting, we’re now asking publicly: Google, when are you fixing this?
Issue Tracker Links:
Was there a law against ad blockers?
The answer is always to follow the money. With Google, you are the product. Your data is their money source. VPNs interfere with this.
The other guy us right. Google abso-fucking-lutey is going to ban em. Mark my words.
Ad blockers don’t prevent work from being done. VPNs are used for work by many many people. Kinda alarmist and baseless to think they’re going to disregard that
That’s not their money. And they are not in this to be altruistic. I doubt they would care.
Besides, that’s always a feature they can restrict to some kind of business plan.
And to be frank, expecting any goodwill from them is dangerously naive. The very idea that Google, who are FAMOUS for randomly canceling projects and services, regardless of the impact, would so much as even notice the damage their actions cause is quite simply ludicrous.
I’m expecting the opposite of goodwill. I’m expecting greed. Companies don’t buy phones from companies that remove their ability to do work. A lot of large companies buy phones. Again: alarmist.
Yeah, but they don’t play by the rules enforced on us, do they?