What's Smart Routing?

Surflare VPN supports two routing modes:

Smart Routing - Only routes traffic for popular Apps through VPN, while other Apps uses your local Internet directly.

Global Routing - Routes all Apps traffic through VPN.

Smart Routing

You can customize Smart Routing policies, however, generally you don't need to configure policies. When you enable Smart Routing, we provide default policies that work well for most users.

📱 How to Configure Smart Routing Policies

Step 1: Open Smart Routing Policies

• Tap the "Options" tab at the bottom of the app

• Select "Smart Routing"

Smart Routing Step 1

Step 2: Find Your App

• Use the search bar at the top to find a specific app

• Or browse by category: General, Productivity, etc.

• Tap "Expand All" to see all apps at once

🎯 Surflare automatically recognizes 400+ popular apps and categorizes them, for example:

  • Productivity: Office365, Salesforce, Zoom
  • AI Tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini
  • Social & Media: Twitter, Instagram

Step 3: Choose Routing Action

For each app, tap the button to select:

  • Proxy → Traffic goes through VPN (protect privacy and security)
  • Direct → Traffic bypasses VPN (faster local access)
  • Reject → Block all connections (block ads and malicious sites)
  • Ignore → Use system default (follow global routing rules)
Smart Routing Step 3
💡 Common Examples

Example 1: Work Apps Through VPN

Set Office365, Salesforce, and Zoom to Proxy

Example 2: Local Banking Direct

Set your local bank app to Direct for better compatibility

Example 3: Block Ads

Create custom rules to Reject ad domains

Advanced: Custom Rules

Tap "Custom Rules" at the top to create precise routing rules using domain names or IP addresses:

DOMAIN,google.com,PROXY Route google.com exactly (must match completely) through VPN
DOMAIN-SUFFIX,google.com,DIRECT Match domains ending with google.com (includes www.google.com, mail.google.com, etc.) to bypass VPN
DOMAIN-KEYWORD,ads,REJECT Block all domains containing "ads"

⚠️ Important:

After changing Smart Routing policies:

  1. Your changes are saved automatically
  2. Reconnect to the VPN for changes to take effect

💡 Tip: Use "Restore Default" button to reset all settings if something goes wrong.