The PIA desktop client offers a variety of widgets and settings to customize your VPN. This guide provides a brief overview of each one.
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VPN Server Widget
To access a complete list of server locations available to you, click the VPN Server Widget.
If there’s an arrow next to a country, you can click it to expand or collapse its list of available server locations.
The number displayed next to each server indicates the latency, or the estimated time it takes for data to travel between your device and that server. Lower latency generally means a faster, more responsive connection. By default, the client is set to Choose Automatically, which connects to the server with the lowest latency.
Click the heart icon next to a server to add it to your favorites. This adds it to the Quick Connect Widget.
IP Widget
The IP Widget displays your real IP address. This is the address assigned to your device by your ISP, and it’s used to identify your device on the internet.
When connected to a VPN server, the widget also displays your VPN IP address, which replaces your real IP while the VPN connection is active.
Finally, if you enable port forwarding, the forwarded port is shown here as well.
Basic/Expanded Display
The PIA desktop client has a basic display and an expanded display. By default, the basic display only includes the VPN server and IP widgets. The expanded display gives you access to additional settings and features, including:
- Quick Connect Widget
- Performance Widget
- Usage Widget
- Quick Settings Widget
- Subscription Widget
- Connection Widget
- VPN Snooze Widget
To view the expanded display, click the down arrow at the bottom of the app.
In the expanded display, you can add or remove widgets from the basic display by clicking the bookmark icon in the upper-right corner of each widget.
Quick Connect Widget
Favorited server locations are added here. Click the flag icons to initiate a VPN connection.
Performance Widget
The Performance Widget shows how much data has been uploaded and downloaded over the VPN connection in the last 5 seconds, as well as the connection duration. This represents actual VPN traffic over time; it’s not a speed test.
Usage Widget
The Usage Widget shows the total amount of data you have downloaded and uploaded since establishing a VPN connection.
Quick Settings Widget
The Quick Settings Widget lets you quickly access certain app settings. From left to right, the icons allow you to enable or disable:
- Desktop Notifications: Pop-up alerts that appear in the corner of your screen when your VPN connection changes, such as an unexpected disconnection.
- MACE: A DNS-based ad blocker that blocks known advertising and malware domains. Learn more about MACE here.
- Port Forwarding: Allows specific incoming connections to reach your device while you’re connected to the VPN. It’s typically used by apps that need to accept incoming connections, such as some games, peer-to-peer tools, or remote access services. Learn more about port forwarding here.
- Allow LAN: If your network supports local area network (LAN) communication, enabling Allow LAN lets your device communicate with other devices on the same network while the VPN is connected.
- Debug Logging: Collects information about the app’s connectivity and behavior to help troubleshoot problems. It doesn’t collect information that can be used to identify you.
- Light Theme: Inverts the PIA client color scheme. This is purely cosmetic.
The last icon, the three horizontal dots (⋯), is a shortcut to the app’s settings menu.
Subscription Widget
The Subscription Widget displays your subscription plan and renewal date.
Connection Widget
The Connection Widget displays technical information about the VPN connection, including:
- VPN protocol
- Remote port
- Authentication method
- Transport type
- Data encryption
- Handshake method
VPN Snooze Widget
The VPN Snooze Widget lets you temporarily pause your VPN connection for a set period of time. The connection will automatically resume once the selected duration has elapsed.
App Settings
There are more settings for the PIA desktop client, which you can access by clicking the three vertical dots (⋮) in the upper-right corner of the app and selecting Settings.
The settings are organized into tabs, which we’ll go through section by section below.
The tabs are:
General
In the General tab, you’ll find the following settings:
- Launch on System Startup: Enabling this option makes PIA start automatically when you turn on your device.
- Connect on Launch: Enabling this option makes PIA automatically initiate a VPN connection upon starting.
- Show Desktop Notifications: Choose whether you want to receive desktop notifications or not.
- Allow Background Latency Checks: Allows the app to periodically measure the latency to available VPN servers in the background. This helps keep ping values up to date and can improve server recommendations.
- Show Geo-Located Regions: Includes geo-located server options in the server selection list. Geo-located servers aren’t physically located in the country/region, but they make it look like your connection comes from there.
- Language: Changes the language of the graphical user interface (GUI).
- Theme: Changes what the app GUI looks like.
- Tray Icon Style: Changes how the PIA icon in your system tray looks.
- Dashboard Appearance: Choose how the app displays when the GUI is open. The Attached to Tray option locks it in place above your taskbar. The Window option allows you to move the GUI around freely.
- Reset All Settings: Resets all app settings to their default values (not just the settings in the General tab).
Protocols
In the Protocols tab, you can choose the VPN protocol used for your connections, either WireGuard or OpenVPN. Learn more about VPN protocols here.
Under the OpenVPN tab, you’ll find the following settings:
- Transport: Choose whether OpenVPN uses UDP or TCP. Generally speaking, UDP provides better performance, while TCP offers greater stability.
- Data Encryption: Choose between AES-128 and AES-256. Both options are secure, but AES-256 provides stronger encryption with slightly lower performance.
- Remote Port: Specify the port used for the VPN connection. PIA only allows traffic on certain ports for security reasons. In some cases, selecting a specific port may help with connectivity issues caused by network restrictions.
- MTU: Sets the maximum packet size allowed through the VPN tunnel. We recommend Auto for most users, as it automatically chooses the best packet size for your connection. Large Packets may improve performance on stable connections, while Small Packets can improve reliability on unstable networks.
- Virtual Network Driver: Determines which virtual network driver is used and how it’s configured. We recommend WinTUN for most users, as it’s the most modern driver and offers the best speeds. You can try TAP (DHCP) if WinTUN doesn’t work and TAP (Static) if TAP (DHCP) doesn’t work.
- Try Alternate Settings: When enabled, the app will automatically try different connection types and remote ports until a connection is successfully established.
Under the WireGuard tab, you will find the following settings:
- Connection Timeout: Sets how long the app will wait while trying to establish a VPN connection before stopping and reporting a failure.
- MTU: Sets the maximum packet size allowed through the VPN tunnel. As above, we recommend Auto for most users, as it automatically chooses the best packet size for your connection.
Network
In the Network tab, you can choose which DNS server to use:
- PIA DNS: Use PIA's DNS servers while connected to the VPN. This is the default option and is recommended for most users.
- Built-in Resolver: Run a DNS resolver locally on your device instead of using PIA’s or a third-party DNS server. This lets your device handle domain lookups directly.
- Handshake DNS: Use PIA's Handshake-enabled DNS servers to support Handshake domains in addition to regular websites.
- Use Existing DNS: Keep using your current DNS server while connected to the VPN instead of switching to PIA’s DNS or another provider.
- Custom: Lets you specify one or more DNS servers of your choice.
You can also toggle:
- Request Port Forwarding: Opens a port on your device from your VPN IP address. The port is assigned automatically. Available only in supported VPN locations.
- Allow LAN Traffic: Allows your device to communicate with other devices on your local network, even when the VPN kill switch is enabled.
Privacy
In the Privacy tab, you can turn the VPN kill switch and the advanced kill switch on or off. The kill switch blocks your internet connection if the VPN disconnects unexpectedly. The advanced kill switch prevents your device from connecting to the internet unless it’s connected to the VPN. Learn more about these features here.
In this section, you can also turn MACE on or off. MACE is PIA’s DNS-based ad blocker. Learn more about it here.
Dedicated IP
In the Dedicated IP tab, you can activate a purchased Dedicated IP. Once activated, the tab will display your assigned IP address.
A Dedicated IP is a unique VPN IP address assigned only to you. For more information about Dedicated IPs, click here.
Automation
In the Automation tab, you can set the VPN to automatically connect or disconnect when you join one of the following network types:
- Protected Wi-Fi network
- Open Wi-Fi
- Wired Connection
- A specific network, such as your home Wi-Fi
Learn more about this feature here.
Split Tunnel
In the Split Tunnel tab, you can turn Split Tunnel on or off and configure rules to exclude specific applications or IPs from the VPN tunnel. Read more about the Split Tunnel feature here.
Multi-Hop
In the Multi-Hop tab, you can turn on or off the Multi-Hop and Obfuscation feature. When enabled, your connection is routed through two servers instead of one, including a proxy server, before reaching its destination. This makes your traffic harder to trace.
You can connect using either Shadowsocks or a SOCKS5 proxy. Shadowsocks lets you connect through a PIA-managed Shadowsocks proxy server from a list of supported locations. The SOCKS5 proxy option lets you use a manually configured proxy server.
Account
In the Account tab, you can view details about your PIA subscription and manage your account settings. This is also where you can log out or switch accounts.
Help
In the Help tab, you will find the app’s current version number and view version changelogs. You’ll also find the following options:
- Enable Debug Logging: Enable this to allow the app to collect information that will help PIA troubleshoot problems.
- Submit Debug Logs: Sends the debug logs and some non-identifying information about your network setup to PIA. Debug Logging must be enabled for this to work.
- Support Portal: Click to open the PIA Support Portal webpage.
- Disable Accelerated Graphics (Windows and Linux only): Checking this may fix some issues with certain graphics cards or drivers. However, it may also increase CPU usage and disable some of the app’s graphical effects.
- Receive Beta Updates: When checked, you’ll be prompted to install beta versions of PIA when available. These are early releases that may include new features still in testing but may be less stable than the standard version.
- Help Improve PIA: Check this to agree to share anonymous connection stats with PIA to help us improve our service. The reports do not contain any personally identifiable information.
- Reinstall: Reinstall various systems inside PIA, such as the TAP Adapter or WinTun Adapter. This can help when troubleshooting issues.
