❓ Frequently asked questions

1. VPN does not connect, does not work. What to do?

In some cases, additional steps may be required to connect to a VPN.
This may be relevant if you use a VPN in countries where the authorities block VPNs, and also with technical restrictions on some ISPs in any country.

Please try each of these steps:

1. Select different locations on the main screen of the application, then reconnect.

2. Select different protocols in the app settings, then reconnect. You must sequentially select each of the protocols, and after each switch, try to connect again.

3. If you have another VPN turned on, turn it off, then restart the Red Shield VPN app and reconnect.

If you're having connectivity issues in the Windows app, please follow the additional solutions in the following answer.

2. What is Red Shield VPN and what is it for?

In some cases, additional steps may be required to connect to a VPN.
This may be relevant if you use a VPN in countries where the authorities block VPNs, and also with technical restrictions on some ISPs in any country.

Please try each of these steps:

1. Select different locations on the main screen of the application, then reconnect.

2. Select different protocols in the app settings, then reconnect. You must sequentially select each of the protocols, and after each switch, try to connect again.

3. If you have another VPN turned on, turn it off, then restart the Red Shield VPN app and reconnect.

4. Make sure that there are no anti-virus applications and Firewall on the computer.
Simultaneous work of such applications with VPN is impossible.

5. Try reinstalling the app.

6. Try restarting your computer.

3. How to start using a VPN? How can I pay for it? Is your VPN free? Is there a trial period?

To start using Red Shield VPN, you need to pay for a subscription. You can do this in the "Subscription" section of the apps or in the Personal Area.
You can see all available payment methods during the payment process.

Red Shield VPN is a paid service. Unlike free services, most of which analyze your traffic and sell information about it to third parties, the Red Shield VPN business model is based on direct payment: we pay for the necessary resources from the funds received from the subscription.

Unfortunately, we do not have a trial period, but we do refund for any reason within 14 days after payment.

4. Can I pay for a subscription with a card issued in Russia? Why is the exchange rate when paying with Russian cards different from the official one?

You can pay for the subscription with any Russian card. To do this, select the method labeled "Russian cards".
The cost of a subscription when paying with Russian cards in rubles differs from the cost of a subscription when paying with other cards in USD.


The subscription cost when paying with a Russian card in rubles can be seen at the last step before payment.


You can still pay in USD with any card accepted by the Stripe payment system.

5. Does Red Shield VPN work in countries where governments block VPNs?

The authorities of some countries such as Russia, China, UAE, Turkey and others block VPN protocols and services.

The technologies we developed and use in Red Shield VPN allow users to connect from some of these countries.

If you are located in one of these countries, please use the Red Shield VPN apps instead of manual configurations - this will make the connection more likely to be successful.

We can say with confidence that our service remains available to users from Russia most of the time.

You can try using the service in other regions where VPNs are blocked by authorities. If something goes wrong - we have a refund offer on request within 14 days after payment.

6. The connection on Android is sometimes disconnected and has to be reconnected manually.

Some vendors, such as Xiaomi and a few others, are trying to improve battery life by stopping background app activity.
Among the applications that they consider not very important are VPN applications.

You can try:

1. In the application settings, enable the "Disable power saving" option.

2. In the Android settings, in the power management section, disable automatic power management for the Red Shield VPN app and allow any activity, including in the background.

3. Select another protocol in the application settings. This method should be used only if the previous two did not help.

However, in rare cases, the system may ignore these settings and terminate the application anyway.

7. Can I set it so that only certain applications work through the VPN?

The Android app has this feature. The Applications setting allows you to enable VPN for only some applications, or exclude certain applications from the VPN. After changing the setting state or application list, you need to reconnect the VPN.

The Windows app will get this feature in one of the next updates.

In apps for iOS and macOS, this feature cannot be implemented due to limitations of the operating system.

8. What does the country or city mean on the app dashboard?

This is a Location - a place (country, city) where our servers are installed, to which you connect and from which you will access the Internet after connecting to the VPN.

You can choose a different location if it is important to you that the service you are accessing determine your location in the right way.

Important: we cannot guarantee correct location detection by each service.

Many services create their own IP-to-location databases that we cannot change.

In addition, some services determine the user's location by many factors other than IP.

9. How to connect to another location?

Click on the name of the location on the main page of the app, select your preferred location from the list and connect again.

10. I connected, but some resource is locating me incorrectly!

Unfortunately, this may be the case. Some resources use old geoip databases or create their own which we cannot edit.
In addition, many resources determine the user's location based on many factors other than IP.
Information in databases editable by the owner of IP addresses, such as geoip from maxmind, is always correct.

To make sure that the traffic goes through the VPN, you can use the banner at the top of our site: redshieldvpn.com.

11. Why does a site or service not work through one location, but works through another?

This can happen for two reasons:

1. The authorities of the country in which the location is located block access to the site or service.

2. The site or service itself blocks access from IP addresses of any country or IP addresses of VPN services.

Unfortunately, we cannot influence this in both cases.
Please use another location to access this site.

12. Are Netflix and other streaming services available through your VPN?

Our service does not take any actions to bypass the restrictions of streaming services.
Despite this, we know that in some locations, streaming services detect the use of VPNs and block access, but in others they do not.
Unfortunately, we can't do anything about it.

13. Are dedicated or residential IP addresses available?

Unfortunately no.

14. How to connect a new device? How many devices can be connected at the same time?

You can connect up to 10 devices to one subscription. Each WireGuard manual configuration is considered a device.

Install the Red Shield VPN app on your device and log in with your username and password to use the subscription on another device.

15. Poor speed, VPN works slowly, what to do?

When you use a VPN, traffic from your device goes to the resource you need (website, application) through an intermediary server or a chain of such servers.
This makes the resource available to you, but reduces speed and increases latency when working with it.

For maximum speed and minimum latency, try the following:


1. Select different locations on the main screen of the application and repeat the connection.


2. Choose different protocols in the app settings and reconnect.


When you are connected to a VPN, you can check the speed to our server at https://st.redshieldvpn.com:444.

16. Where can I check connected devices?

You can view and manage devices connected to your account in the "Profile" section of the Personal Area.

17. Why does my smartphone drain faster when using a VPN?

A VPN is a resource-intensive task that includes maintaining the tunnel, redirecting traffic to it, and encrypting the data transmitted through it.

18. Can I set up a VPN connection without using your apps?

You can set up a VPN using the WireGuard or OpenVPN protocols on any device that supports these protocols. All the necessary connection data can be obtained at myrsv.org.

However, if you are located in Russia or another country where the government restricts VPN access, we do not recommend configuring the connection manually, because blocking bypasses are supported in our apps, but are not supported by OpenVPN and WireGuard apps or routers.

19. What is the difference between Red Shield VPN and browser plugins also called VPNs?

Browser plugins are proxies and only route traffic from the browser through their nodes, while VPNs route all traffic from the device.

When using browser plug-ins, all other data your device transmits or receives passes directly and may be intercepted and stored by third parties.

For example, when using plugins, DNS requests are transmitted in the clear, in which governments or providers can see all the resources you access.

20. Why pay for a VPN when there are free services?

There are two business models that VPN services operate on:

1) You pay for the service with money.

2) You pay for the service with your data.

There is another, very rare case - when the service has one or more sponsors - usually, these are large companies or governments. In this case, the service shares your data with them, that is, it can be attributed to the second model.

Free VPNs sell your data to anyone and regularly leak user databases because their business model doesn't have a reputation to uphold. They close the brand that allowed the drain, and the next day they open under a new one.

Our service offers a fair deal: you pay for the subscription with the money that we use to support and develop the service.

21. What are the RedLink and RedLink Shadow protocols in your apps?

These are our implementations and combinations of various protocols such as WireGuard and others.

22. Are torrents available through your service?

Torrents may work in some locations.

However, we cannot guarantee their work in any of the locations due to claims from copyright holders.

23. What information do you store about my account?

We store the information necessary for the operation of the service: email, country, hashed password, data required to connect to the VPN, payment history.

You can get all this information in the "Profile" section of myrsv.org by requesting data under the GDPR. In the same section, you can completely delete your account.

24. I want to commit crimes with Red Shield VPN. How will this end for me?

Red Shield VPN hides your IP address from the resource, however, it does not ensure your anonymity.
The use of Red Shield VPN is subject to the laws of the United States, Panama and the country in which you are connecting to the server.
We cooperate with the authorities of the countries in which our companies are registered in strict accordance with their laws.
We store minimal data about our users and do not store data about connections and traffic at all, however, according to the relevant decision of the US or Panama court, we will be forced to transfer the data we have of interest to the court.

If we detect activity that harms other users of the service or resources on the Internet - for example, the use of our servers for SPAM, DDoS and other malicious activity, we will block your account without the possibility of a refund.

25. How can I delete my account?

You can completely delete your account in the "Profile" section in the Personal Area.
If your account has an active subscription, then all information about it will be deleted and a refund will not be possible.

26. Can I set up a VPN connection on a router?

You can set up a VPN connection on almost any router or other device that supports the OpenVPN or WireGuard protocols.
You can get the configurations to set up in the Personal Area.
The WireGuard configuration for Mikrotik is available in the menu of the created WireGuard-config.

27. Does my router support the OpenVPN or WireGuard protocols required for connection?

You can find out about protocol support by your router from its documentation or Google.
If the router is connected via OpenVPN, it must support modern cipher and auth.

28. How are devices connected to the router counted?

We consider one router as one connection, regardless of the number of clients connected to it.
However, we limit connection parameters such as pps (packets per second), so we do not recommend connecting more than 2-3 devices to the router.

29. Can you help me set up a connection on my router?

Unfortunately, we do not advise on connecting routers.
You can get all the necessary data for connecting the router on the myrsv.org.
The WireGuard configuration for Mikrotik is available in the created WireGuard configuration menu.