Kill switch
A control that blocks all internet traffic if the VPN tunnel drops, rather than letting it fall back to your normal connection.
Glossary
Split tunnelling
Routing some applications or destinations through the VPN while leaving others on your ordinary connection.
Why it matters
It solves the practical conflicts: banking apps that refuse foreign addresses, local network printers, or a game where latency matters more than privacy.
What most explanations leave out
Every excluded application is outside the protection, and the exclusion list is easy to forget. It is a convenience feature that trades away exactly the thing you bought. On mobile, per-app rules are the common form; on desktop, per-destination rules are more precise and less used.
Related terms
Always-on VPN
An operating-system-level setting that prevents any traffic leaving the device unless the tunnel is up.
Referenced from
Terms are defined here because they appear in our scoring rubric or in provider reviews, not to fill a glossary.