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Cellular data (LTE, 4G, 3G, etc) is very expensive and one can find some free Wi-Fi APs. But these days, there are so many compromised or malicious APs.
To prevent man-in-the-middle attacks and to access the files stored on my home server, I would like to use a VPN tunnel to my home VPN server. The only problem is that background applications and services may try to access the Internet as soon as the network is connected before I connect the device to the VPN server.
The only guaranteed solution I came up with is to carry a private mobile AP that has VPN functionality built-in, and connect to the Internet through it. (I have not searched for such product yet; I just thought of it.) But are there any software-based generic solutions? Since I need to use Android, Windows, and OS X, I would like to know solutions for any of these OSes.
There are several apps that help with this issue, and Android 4.2+ have an "Always On VPN" setting. The issue is that you may have to disable this in order to use your cell data plan. – Frank Thomas – 2015-07-07T11:35:21.017