Smart routes: several routes, one steady connection
A poor network should not mean a dead connection. Smart routes tries several routes at once, keeps checking them while you are connected and moves you to a better one by itself, with no drop.
Where it exists
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- fv
- OpenWrt
Direct routetried first
Through an extra server of ourschosen automatically
Moves here, no drop
Backup routethe last resort
Cheaper first
- Direct route costs least
- much worse or stalled
- Extra server of ours costs more
- nothing else carries data
- Backup route costs most, so it is the last resort
How it works
- 01
Try several at once
Instead of guessing one route and holding on to it, ForestVPN tries the direct route, a path through an extra server of ours and the backup route side by side.
- 02
Keep checking
While you are connected it keeps measuring them. The direct route is preferred, and a costlier route wins only when the cheaper one is much worse.
- 03
Move without a drop
When another route does better, the connection moves to it while the old one is still carrying data. If no route to your place carries data, Smart location moves you to another place.
Under the hood
How the engine is built: Smart used to guess once and hold a route with timers. Now the device keeps a short list of routes and checks each one while you are connected, inside the connection it already has, with no new sign-in and no new handshake.
Each place is ranked by its own measured latency, taken on the route a first connect would use, so a place reached by a longer road is not mistaken for a slow one. The backup route is a gate rather than an equal candidate.
Our own machines also measure the links between them, and one score ranks every route. What this promises you is only that ForestVPN keeps checking.
What you get
- A connection that keeps working when the network around you changes or gets worse, with nothing for you to pick.
- The backup route stays the last resort, with its own monthly allowance.
- When your network changes, ForestVPN looks at its routes again in the background.
- On Windows, Linux, the Mac app from our site and the command line, after the device sleeps and wakes, the connection keeps or regains its route instead of hanging on Reconnecting.
- Port rotation: ForestVPN changes the port its connection uses.
- Network-aware routing is one setting, on by default. Turn it off and ForestVPN stops making these route decisions.
Limits and honest caveats
- It keeps a connection going. It cannot make a network faster than it is, and it cannot help when every route is down.
- The app tells you when you are on the backup route, which has its own monthly allowance.
- A place you pick yourself stays where you put it. Only Smart location can change places.
- Smart routes is on Windows, Linux, the Mac app from our site, the command line and OpenWrt routers today. The Mac App Store version, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Android get it with an app update.
Plans
Free and Premium both have it. The backup route has its own monthly allowance on each plan.
Questions
- Do I have to turn it on?
- No. It runs by itself. The one related setting is Network-aware routing, which is on by default.
- Will I notice a switch?
- The aim is that you do not: the new route takes over while the old one is still carrying data. The app tells you when you are on the backup route.
- Is it the same as the backup route?
- No. The backup route is one of the routes Smart routes can use, and the last resort.