In September 2025, Mullvad VPN announced its new QUIC obfuscation for WireGuard on all desktop VPN platforms. Now QUIC obfuscation is also available on iOS and Android devices, thereby increasing the effectiveness of Mullvad VPN’s ability to bypass firewalls and VPN censorship.
QUIC is a transport protocol that tunnels UDP, an Internet communications protocol, through an HTTP server acting as a proxy. This VPN obfuscation works by hiding encryption traffic to make it look like normal HTTP web traffic, which is generally not blocked by state-level censors.
Using Mullvad VPN’s default settings, if a user has a few failed connection attempts, the app will automatically attempt QUIC obfuscation. However, users can configure the VPN app to always use QUIC.
Note that enabling QUIC does not improve the performance or privacy benefits of the VPN and should only be used if users have difficulty connecting or are in a restricted location.
Here’s how to enable QUIC dimming:
- On the desktop:
- Make sure you are using at least version 2025.9 of the Mullvad VPN desktop app.
- Go to Settings > VPN Settings > WireGuard Settings > Obfuscation > select FAST
- You can also run the following terminal command: Mullvad dimming quick adjustment mode
- On Android/iOS:
- Make sure you are using at least version 2025.8 on Android or iOS
- Go to Settings > VPN Settings > WireGuard Obfuscation > select FAST.
Although Mullvad is the first major VPN to implement QUIC obfuscation, several other providers have come up with other ways to circumvent network censorship and restrictions. NordVPN and ProtonVPN developed their proprietary NordWhisper and Stealth protocols, respectively, while ExpressVPN and Surfshark created modified versions of the OpenVPN protocol to support obfuscation.
