That’s a neat little trick. I didn’t know about that one, thanks.
I think you can only disable split-tunneling on computers, not Android (Firestick). On PC it’s on the “Settings - Split tunneling” tab, under the “Kill Switch” tab. On the Firestick it should be called “Trusted apps” right next to the “Auto-connect” tab. Again, I don’t think you can turn if off on Android (Firestick), but it’s great if you want to bypass a specific app from going through Nord for speed purposes.
I own a Firestick 4k Max, and I don’t use NordVPN on my Firestick, only AdGuard. I use an AdGuard app for the Firestick I found online a while back. It definitely blocks ads on sideloaded apps like Cinema HD, Cyberflix TV, etc. But I think ads might be different than commercials though, I don’t know (I don’t use any official apps from the Amazon app store). Alternatively, you can use the SmartTube (Stable release) app for watching YouTube videos without ads; it’s a very good modded Firestick YouTube app clone. I’ve heard you can also add AdGuard’s default servers: 94.140.14.14 and 94.140.15.15 to NordVPN’s “Custom DNS” settings (Firestick) to use AdGuard’s ad blocking on Nord, but I haven’t actually tried it myself.
https://firetvsticks.com/download-adguard/
https://smarttubeapp.github.io
I’m glad you got it working. Good luck.
Essentially, yea, when you check your assigned IP addresses Nord should have a public and private IP. I’d try the public first and if that doesn’t work, local, and if that doesn’t work then I suppose I’m wrong haha. That’s assigning those IPs as AdBlockers DNS
Do you have to pay for Adguard?
The only guide I could find that uses NordVPN’s settings on AdGuard Ad Blocker was this guide: https://adguard.com/kb/adguard-for-android/solving-problems/outbound-proxy/
It didn’t work for me though. I was supposed to add one of Nord’s proxy host/servers onto AdGuard’s proxy settings manually, use proxy port 1080, Nord’s username and password, etc. I always got “the proxy is dead or the configuration is invalid” error message Lol. That would’ve been another way of using both programs side to side as an alternative without having to actually install the NordVPN program.
I’m probably doing something wrong, but for now adding AdGuard’s DNS settings to Nord’s Custom DNS section tab seems to be working fine. I’ll stick to that for now.
No, not for that Firestick version of AdGuard. The last AdGuard app version on that website is AdGuard v4.0.79 which is modded; it’s outdated, but it has a lifetime license for free. I’ve used it for a long time now as the default adblock server is probably the same as the paid one.
I did pay for an AdGuard adblock lifetime subscription to use on my PC and Android smartphone though since it gives you a few extra things that the free one doesn’t give you. The AdGuard free version doesn’t warn you if you access a suspicious website, or a site known for viruses, it doesn’t allow you to install your own custom adblocking filters in case AdGuard’s filters are not enough, etc. I think the paid licensed app also blocks ads on some of your other installed apps; my little niece has been getting less ads when playing games on her Samsung tablet.
The license is typically found for cheap on sites like stacksocial.com which offers 3 device or 9 device lifetime subscriptions for the adblocking app (not the VPN one). You can also revoke the subscription from old devices you stop using, to use on new ones straight from your online account.
For blocking ads on YouTube (tablet, smartphone), you can either use YouTube through your devices’ browser, and it should block ads. Or you can use the YouTube app, and “share” the video through AdGuard using the “share” YouTube button; annoying, but AdGuard “should” filter the ads then.
Your login username/PW? In the OpenVPN guide theres another set of credentials in your NordVPN profile, did you use those?
Sounds good though, only way to know if it’s working for sure is if you head here: https://www.dnsleaktest.com/
Run a simple, or extended, test and if it doesn’t say Packethub then NordVPN isn’t doing anything other than adding hops. This is the problem I ran into when using anything other than Nords DNS servers
Yeah the credentials I used are the same as my NordVPN account but no go. As far as the test, it’s showing dns.adguard-dns.com as the hostname and a different location to where I am, so at the very least both AdGuard’s DNS and NordVPN are working.
so, for the previous setup youd have to log into your account on NordVPN’s website > click NordVPN on the left under services > scroll to the bottom and look for Manual Setup > click “Setup NordVPN Manually” > and get an access token. this is what would need to be used for that config
as for the dns test showing dns.adguard-dns.com this suggests that nordVPN may not be working correctly. to verify nord is in fact working with the current setup you can run a traceroute by opening the command prompt and entering:
tracert 8.8.8.8
what follows should be a series of asterisks for each hop, something like:
1 ****** ******* *******
2 ****** ******* *******
3 ****** ******* *******
and so on. if you see any IP or host then you are in fact not on the VPN however if you do see only the asterisks in the results of a taceroute then youre good to go
That token-based authentication is what I was missing then. Thanks a lot for that. I did read that guide, but I overlooked it because it seemed to be only for torrenting. It makes sense now that it would be to set it up manually with any other third party software.
As far as DNS leak sites showing dns.adguard-dns.com it’s because I’m allowing the AdGuard’s DNS through the app’s “Custom DNS” settings. If I disable the option then it uses NordVPN’s DNS. I’ve tested my IP connection with and without AdGuard/NordVPN and the results are different than my real location and IP address. Thanks a lot.
Right on, happy to help but it seems you could’ve figured it all out on your own the whole time haha. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, as they say
Best of luck with it all and have fun when you get around to tinkering some more
There always seems to be a missing piece of the puzzle, so thanks for that. Have a good one.