F-secure VPN and phonelink

Below is F-Secure's response to my question, but it didn't help me. The VPN needs to be turned off at least on the phone if you want the phone link to work

I posted additional information on the forum and am waiting for a response. I'll post the response here if one comes.

Hopefully, these instructions might be helpful to someone else and also inform you.

• Working Windows 11 PC,F-Secure 25.3←—→Android 15 mobile,F-Secure 25.3 (Phone Link)
• 1. VPN killswitch option must be off on both side
• 2. VPN option "allow local services" must be on at mobile
• 3. "LInk to windows" app must be allowed to bypass VPN at the mobile side
• " Phone Link program in windows
• Why you can't just add it to VPN whitelists ?
• Because it’s a UWP app: (Universal Windows Program)
• It doesn't have a fixed .exe path.
• F-Secure (and many VPNs/firewalls) can't whitelist it the same way as traditional .exe apps.
• ✅ Workaround:
• Since whitelisting Phone Link isn’t possible via .exe, the better route is to:
• Allow local network traffic in the VPN (if available).
• Or disable VPN temporarily on one device.
• "
• 4. Both devices must in the same wifi and and among trusted
• 5. Initial connection(pairing) may be made by bluetooth

Thanks for the update.

Please also ask if the F-Secure VPN has the Split Tunneling option. As of 2021, they didn't have that feature.

Does Freedome VPN have Split Tunnel Features? — F-Secure Community:

https://community.f-secure.com/en/discussion/12...

Split-tunneling is an app bypass option that may be what you need. If it doesn't have that option, you may consider switching to another VPN.

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Follow-up to my question on the F-Secure forum, the response was:

Okay, a little bit of a tricky situation, maybe the F-Secure developers will find a more usable way to accomplish this, it shouldn't be like this.

I checked the documentation of other VPNs and found that they don't support adding Store apps to exclusions. This is because Store apps don't exist as discrete processes. In most cases, additional executables, like runtimebroker.exe, are involved when launching Store apps.

Ok. I ask that splittunneling-option and they not have it.

I discussed the issue via chat with an expert, but no answer was found to the question, so he planned to contact the development team and inform me later if a solution is found.

I will inform you when I get the answer. It may take a couple of days.