The WireGuard and tailscale apps work great for me without a persistent notification.
WireGuard doesn’t support notifications at all.
Tailscale does and by default it shows a persistent notification but you can just silence it or turn it off in the apps notification settings.
Persistent notification thus seems to be unnecessary for VPNs to function, Google/Android dev documentation recommends a persistent notification for the UX but it’s not needed.
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/vpn
In conclusion it appears that third party apps can indeed provide a VPN service without a notification.
Unfortunately, that will mean your app can be killed on many smartphones from device makers like xiaomi, Oppo, and huawei, which have aggressive battery optimization. I had this issue on a redmi device where background apps would be killed unless a permanent notification was present.
The WireGuard and tailscale apps work great for me without a persistent notification.
I haven’t tried wireguard. But, I should give them a try and see how it goes in samsung.
The ranking may make it sound like samsung is the worst. But that’s not been the case since android 12. I do not have app reload or app killing issues on this one and find it much better than what I used to experience on miui.
The WireGuard and tailscale apps work great for me without a persistent notification.
WireGuard doesn’t support notifications at all. Tailscale does and by default it shows a persistent notification but you can just silence it or turn it off in the apps notification settings.
Persistent notification thus seems to be unnecessary for VPNs to function, Google/Android dev documentation recommends a persistent notification for the UX but it’s not needed. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/vpn
In conclusion it appears that third party apps can indeed provide a VPN service without a notification.
Unfortunately, that will mean your app can be killed on many smartphones from device makers like xiaomi, Oppo, and huawei, which have aggressive battery optimization. I had this issue on a redmi device where background apps would be killed unless a permanent notification was present.
I haven’t tried wireguard. But, I should give them a try and see how it goes in samsung.
Ah, I have a pixel which apparently is pretty nice on the not killing your app side
https://dontkillmyapp.com/google
The ranking may make it sound like samsung is the worst. But that’s not been the case since android 12. I do not have app reload or app killing issues on this one and find it much better than what I used to experience on miui.
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