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I have not tried WireGuard yet. Is it more reliable than existing methods over "bad Wi-Fi"? I find that one of the best ways to make bad hotel or plane Wi-Fi c

I have not tried WireGuard yet. Is it more reliable than existing methods over "bad Wi-Fi"? I find that one of the best ways to make bad hotel or plane Wi-Fi completely unusable is to use a VPN, and having something more reliable on bad links would be great.

hamandcheese 8y ago
WireGuard uses UDP and is effectively "connectionless" meaning there is no persistent connection to be maintained. It also allows for seamless IP address roaming (your peer doesn't care if two messages come from two different IPs so long as they are signed with the right key). In short, I expect it to have no meaningful degradation when on a bad network (so long as they don't block the traffic or have overly hostile NAT).
- gepeto42 8y ago
  That is exactly what I was hoping for. Too bad it'll take forever before iOS can use it, because the current state of VPN on Wi-Fi is terrible (I understand that is not the first thing WireGuard is looking to solve, but it'll be great when it gets there).
  - xena 8y ago
    The way WireGuard is designed should actually result in a more stable connection for the end user when the device is hopping between LTE and WiFi constantly.
  - atonse 8y ago
    There apps that can run as third party VPN providers on iOS. It's often used by corporate networks that use non-standard VPN protocols. So there is hope. :-)
  - benjaminl 8y ago
    ZeoTier, which also uses UDP, has an iOS app. So it is possible if the dev team wants to prioritize it.
    - whyagaindavid 8y ago
      I seriously recommend all to try zero-tier. Especially the fine-grained permissions control is fantastic. It is the only one that went so far as fool-proof.
    - grumblez 8y ago
      It wasn't a whole lot of fun trying to connect code designed to operate at L2 (ZeroTier) with the L3 tun adapter they give you in iOS and Android. Fortunately that code doesn't have to be touched too often though :)
      - woah 8y ago
        Is it open source?
      - hamandcheese 8y ago
        Fortunately WireGuard only encapsulates at L3, if I’m not mistaken :)
lvh 8y ago
It’s great at roaming, but it is UDP; so if your bad WiFi doesn’t let you use egress UDP that won’t work. It’s pretty speedy though :)
aeries 8y ago
I've found UDP over OpenVPN to work fairly well even on bad networks. Well-supported on iOS too with the OpenVPN Connect app.
- ngharo 8y ago
  It does until it doesn't. Then you have to wait X seconds for a keepalive (one of the 100+ configurables) to notice you're not passing traffic, and your client to tear down the dead tunnel and reconnect. Meanwhile many other applications have also lost connection to endpoints and need to do the same type of reconnection. Stateless is the best feature of WireGuard IMO. I'm really looking forward to the mobile clients stabilizing.

hamandcheese 8y ago

WireGuard uses UDP and is effectively "connectionless" meaning there is no persistent connection to be maintained. It also allows for seamless IP address roaming (your peer doesn't care if two messages come from two different IPs so long as they are signed with the right key). In short, I expect it to have no meaningful degradation when on a bad network (so long as they don't block the traffic or have overly hostile NAT).

gepeto42 8y ago
That is exactly what I was hoping for. Too bad it'll take forever before iOS can use it, because the current state of VPN on Wi-Fi is terrible (I understand that is not the first thing WireGuard is looking to solve, but it'll be great when it gets there).
- xena 8y ago
  The way WireGuard is designed should actually result in a more stable connection for the end user when the device is hopping between LTE and WiFi constantly.
- atonse 8y ago
  There apps that can run as third party VPN providers on iOS. It's often used by corporate networks that use non-standard VPN protocols. So there is hope. :-)
- benjaminl 8y ago
  ZeoTier, which also uses UDP, has an iOS app. So it is possible if the dev team wants to prioritize it.
  - whyagaindavid 8y ago
    I seriously recommend all to try zero-tier. Especially the fine-grained permissions control is fantastic. It is the only one that went so far as fool-proof.
  - grumblez 8y ago
    It wasn't a whole lot of fun trying to connect code designed to operate at L2 (ZeroTier) with the L3 tun adapter they give you in iOS and Android. Fortunately that code doesn't have to be touched too often though :)
    - woah 8y ago
      Is it open source?
    - hamandcheese 8y ago
      Fortunately WireGuard only encapsulates at L3, if I’m not mistaken :)

lvh 8y ago

It’s great at roaming, but it is UDP; so if your bad WiFi doesn’t let you use egress UDP that won’t work. It’s pretty speedy though :)

aeries 8y ago

I've found UDP over OpenVPN to work fairly well even on bad networks. Well-supported on iOS too with the OpenVPN Connect app.

ngharo 8y ago
It does until it doesn't. Then you have to wait X seconds for a keepalive (one of the 100+ configurables) to notice you're not passing traffic, and your client to tear down the dead tunnel and reconnect. Meanwhile many other applications have also lost connection to endpoints and need to do the same type of reconnection. Stateless is the best feature of WireGuard IMO. I'm really looking forward to the mobile clients stabilizing.