I have always-on VPN active on my Pixel 5 (running GrapheneOS but I would assume that the behavior would be identical to stock, as I don't see the hotspot functionality mentioned in the GOS overview).
Now, what's curious, when I create a hotspot, it will mirror the network usage of the PC that is connected through that hotspot. So on my phone, the VPN app will show the download speed that I currently have on my PC, but it's showing it as an equal number for download and upload (I'm using Proton VPN). So my phone shows, for example, 412 KB/s download, 412 KB/s upload, and on my PC, it's showing me 820 KB/s download, when I'm downloading a file there.
I cannot remember this ever having been the behavior for hotspots on Android. It appears as if the hotspot that the phone creates in itself goes through the always-on VPN tunnel, which to my knowledge never was the case before (I haven't used hotspot for some time now though).
Has anything changed here? Is this perhaps a GrapheneOS-specific thing? Is there a way to still use the hotspot directly, without it going through the VPN tunnel? Since I think this reduces my effective speed, as it is going through 2 VPN connections (once on my phone, then again on my desktop), and I'm effectively using my bandwith twice for the same amount of data. Or would I have to simply disable the always-on VPN on my PC?
If anyone wants to try this themselves, here are the steps:
- get ProtonVPN on Android and Windows
- turn on always-on funcionality on both (system setting on Android, in-app setting on Windows)
- turn on hotspot and have the Windows PC connect to the internet through it
- download a big file / video stream on the PC and watch the download and upload behavior in the Android ProtonVPN app