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The original was posted on /r/mullvadvpn by /u/askscompquestions on 2023-08-05 19:56:02+00:00.


My expectation: Split tunneling through mullvad-exclude browser will let the browser to open websites as if there is no vpn used. Blocked websites stay blocked. And vice versa.

Reality: It doesn’t do that. Error codes are also different. And switching locations (the countries, but could be the actual server that matters) gave several different cases:

  1. Can’t open web.whatsapp.com. Can’t open reddit.
  2. Can’t open web.whatsapp.com. Can open reddit.
  3. Can open web.whatsapp.com. Can open reddit.

Obviously I tried many more websites that are usually affected by vpn. I just mentioned those 2 as examples. Btw mullvad.net is blocked in all cases. Except when I’m not split tunneling and explicitly on mullvad.

I obviously didn’t expect switching countries to affect a split-tunneled browser. But here we are.

It’s probably a weird interaction of mullvad and my current country’s censorship methods and whatsapp etc.'s anti-vpn practices.

I can’t just do everything on vpn. Because some big websites don’t like it when I’m on mullvad. And I can’t just turn it off. Because some sites are blocked. Currently I just pick a location where most of the websites work. Which may not last. And again it’s unexpected.

Anyone got a plausible explanation/solution? I use Arch btw.


Similar problem, but someone couldn’t open mullvad.net too and fixed it by turning off a site blocking filter on the router. I didn’t find anything like that personally.