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  3. Can I use both iCloud Private Relay and Viscosity?

Can I use both iCloud Private Relay and Viscosity?

iCloud Private Relay is a macOS feature offered to iCloud+ subscribers. It acts in a similar fashion to a HTTPS proxy server, and tunnels web traffic and DNS lookups through a proxy server to hide your real IP address. It is disabled by default.

In some ways it is like a commercial VPN service: it is designed to hide your real IP address to make it more difficult to identify you, while also encrypting the traffic between you and the server. However, unlike a commercial VPN service, it doesn't tunnel all traffic on your computer, only HTTP traffic, DNS lookups, and web pages in Safari.

While recent versions of macOS have improved iCloud Private Relay's behaviour when using alongside a VPN connection, it can sometimes still cause issues. If you are encountering issues using your VPN connection we recommend turning off Private Relay while using your VPN connection.

Known Issues

VPN DNS Servers May Not Be Used

iCloud Private Relay intercepts and performs its own DNS lookups via the Private Relay servers. Your VPN connection's DNS server/s may not be used to perform lookups while Private Relay is active in some instances. This can result in internal domains failing to resolve. This affects all applications, not just Safari.

VPN Connections That Use Port 80 Fail To Connect

In some instances, an OpenVPN connection may be configured to use port 80 (commercial VPN Service Providers often do this to help workaround VPN blocking attempts). iCloud Private Relay mistakenly thinks that the connection is a standard HTTP connection and will attempt to proxy it via a Private Relay server, breaking the VPN connection.

Disabling iCloud Private Relay

It is recommended that iCloud Private Relay be temporarily disabled while using a VPN connection. To disable iCloud Private Relay:

  1. Open the Apple menu and select System Settings.
  2. Scroll down the sidebar until you see iCloud, and select it.
  3. In the iCloud+ Features section to the right, click on Private Relay
  4. If Private Relay is on, toggle the checkbox to turn it off.
  5. Click the "Turn Off Private Relay" button when prompted.