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The Installation Notes at the bottom of the MonitorDot.com homepage describe how to get Monitor Dot running on Android 14 devices:

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Thank you, Troy!

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Thank you, EngineerMind!

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Troy, I get it. But, Iā€™ve been using NordVPN for over 4 years now and they have a Kill Switch. Not sure if itā€™s the type of kill switch the other VPNā€™s have. It gives you a choice in Settings to allow the Kill Switch or not. Then you have to manually add what apps to shut down if the VPN drops. From your testing, is something wrong with this? What do you think of NordVPN? Iā€™m not expert by any means and depend on your website for almost everything I do with cord cutting so if thereā€™s something Iā€™m missing, by all means please let me know. I have no problem dropping NordVPN for one you recommend. Thanks.

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I was never able to find the kill switch feature in Nord on Android TVOS

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Hi Streaming429, youā€™re absolutely correct. I was looking at my NordVPN app on my MacBook. Then late this afternoon I went to my Living Room and looked at the Nord app on my Nvidia Shield Pro and you are correct. There is no Kill Switch. But, after reading all of NordVPNā€™s Help and Support information, they specifically describe a Kill Switch on their Android app. I sent them an email explaining everything Iā€™ve done and asked them to tell me whatā€™s going on. Iā€™ll post their answer the moment I get a reply from them, hopefully by morning.

I do have one question for anyone who can help. The Nord documentation talks about and provides a link to an apk file download for ā€œside loadingā€ an Android devise. The problem is, I couldnā€™t figure out how to do this on my Nvidia Shield Pro. Can someone point me to any documentation that helps in this area? Thank you!

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Sorry, I forgot to add, the reason I was interested in side loading the NordVPN app on my Shield is, I was thinking this might be an updated version that they described in their documentation with a kill switch.

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The Play Store has the app as well as you can always use a web browser to go to the Nord website and download the .apk right from there

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Hereā€™s the NordVPN reply to my question ā€œis there a Kill Switch on their Android versionā€;

ā€œThank you for your letter. Unfortunately, The Kill Switch feature is not available for Android TV devices. We would rather not give you an estimation when we do not have one for certain to avoid false promises. Telling you that it will take 5 days and if in reality, it ends up taking 2 months - would be bad for both sides involved. We understand that waiting is rather frustrating, and we can only apologize in the name of the company. Let us know if there is anything else we can assist you with!ā€

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The other day, while I was waiting to hear back from Troypoint, I Googled the question about the new Onn 4k Plus and not being able to load the ā€œDotā€ apps. One of the first responses was from a Reddit thread on the Onn 4k Plus. I noticed a post that said they too could not load either Dot app.

Then I saw this reply;
ā€œCurious, why are you using a VPN? No ATV apps use torrents outside of Stremio and Kodi add-ons, so your govā€™t and ISP donā€™t care what you stream, you canā€™t be sued, so all a VPN will do is slow your connection. Outside of accessing geolocked content, VPN isnā€™t necessary.ā€

That person then replied;
ā€œAre you serious? This is a joke, correct?ā€

They replied;
"No. Just like if someone uploaded a movie to YouTube, that uploader is doing so illegally, but you are not infringing copyright by clicking that publicly-available link. Downloading a movie infringes copyrightā€¦ you now own a copy of something you didnā€™t pay for which is unjust enrichment. Uploading/sharing is also illegal, with much harsher fines than downloading, which is why torrenting is risky in countries that enforce copyright.

But, as counterintuitive as it seems, thereā€™s nothing illegal about streaming copyrighted works. There are some arguments, like part of a show resides in your cache while streaming, constituting downloading, but thatā€™s pretty spurious."

I always thought I was somewhat intelligent but I guess my years are making me fall short in this area. My head is spinning like Linda Blair in the Exorcist. Can someone help me here, and please take it easy on this old man. Iā€™m seriously missing whatā€™s taking place here. Troypoint is and always will be my go-to source for the most accurate and true information regarding cord cutting. Everything Iā€™ve been told on Troypoint says you MUST have a VPN if you want to play in cord cutting. Yet, this guy says you donā€™t need a VPN. What in G-dā€™s name is going on?

And NO, Iā€™m NOT getting rid of my VPN!

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Correct, Stremio and quite a few Kodi addons use torrent technology which this website recommends using. Elementum is one of those addons. I also use VPN as I donā€™t want my ISP tracking everything that I stream. There are some who donā€™t use a VPN but better safe than sorry IMO, it costs 2 bucks per month.

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When I first started streaming torrents over 15 years ago no one really used VPNā€™s. Before that I used to download torrents no VPN.
When I started using RD about ten years I havenā€™t used a VPN because I know the traffic is encrypted but I know that RD keep logs for a year and probably other Debrid services do also.
If I downloaded a torrent now which is very rare I would use a vpn and bind it to my torrent client.
I know that using a vpn will hamper my speed because the data has to be encrypted then unencrypted.
All VPNā€™s work like this when you use fully encrypted data protocols.
But I can just download encrypted content from RD if I need to and I know I donā€™t need a vpn.
If I was streaming torrents now without a debrid service I would use a vpn to be on the safe side.
But my neighbour has been streaming torrents without a vpn for over ten years and never received any warning from his ISPā€™s or copyright holders.
We both live in the UK.
I would never use a VPN for any official serviceā€™s because that is just pointless imo.

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I have SS and the VPN monitor Dot on all my devices. One thing I donā€™t understand. As far as I understand when the monitor dot flashes red my VPN has gone down and it is supposed to shut down the internet.
Letā€™s say Iā€™m watching a show and the red dot flashes. My first thought is how long have I not noticed it flashing and the show is still playing.
During the time it takes me to shut kodi get to SS and resolve the problem I feel like Iā€™m out in the open and vulnerable while the show plays and SS is shut down.
Correct my assumption: If the red dot flashes it means my VPN has disconnected and if that action is supposed to shut down my internet. Why is the show still playing?
Please enlighten me.
leahcimj

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The red dot simply lets you know if your VPN is active, not your internet. If it goes red then shut down the app you are using back out and restart your VPN. With a built in kill switch then if your VPN goes down the kill switch will klll your internet connection to ensure that no data or info is passed on. So the safety dot just helps on some streaming devices that the VPN does not have a kill switch coded in, just a sort of visiual warning for you to react to.

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When the dot starts flashing red, open your VPN app and see if it still thinks itā€™s ā€œconnectedā€. If it is not connected, then that would confirm the red dot.

However, if you had the ā€œKill Switchā€ feature enabled, and the streaming app was still streaming for more than around 30 seconds, then this might suggest the kill switch function did not work properly. The reason why I said ā€œ30 secondsā€ is because the kill switch might have worked properly and closed the internet connection, but the player app was able to continue playing the stream because it may have buffered some of the stream and was playing that buffer even with no active internet connection - but it should eventually stop playing when the buffer runs out.

Normally, if the kill switch feature is working properly when the VPN then disconnects, the dot will stay green because the VPNā€™s kill switch is doing itā€™s job protecting you by cutting the internet connection. The symptom when this happens is that the stream would stop while the green dot is still flashing. You would need to open your VPN app to actually see that it disconnected.

If you did have the kill switch enabled and the stream did continue to play for longer than 30 seconds after the dot turned red (and the VPN disconnected), then please let us know that because that would indicate the kill switch feature is not 100% reliable.

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Thank you for your input. I have SS, I have the VPN Dot, I have the kill switch enabled. When I see the red dot flashing and the movie or show is still playing, that kinda causes a little panic that I am exposed. When the dot flashes red I never know if I missed it when it started and how long itā€™s been flashing red but I never purposely waited 30 sec. to see the show stop indicating no internet. It would be very hard to let it play while the dot flashes.
Iā€™ve also experiencing starting a device to find no internet connection and having to restart the device to resume normal. My assumption is my VPN shut down the internet while unattended. Can I rely on being protected during that 30 minute window?

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The only way to have any confidence that the kill switch is working properly is to test it the next time you see a red dot.

So the next time the dot flashes red, try running some app that will quickly confirm if the internet connection is active or not. One suggestion is to run a speed test app like Analiti.

If analiti shows an active internet, then open your VPN app and if it shows itā€™s disconnected, then that means the kill switch is NOT working and please update this thread so we can all know this.

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Can I create the same test by opening SS, turning off auto connect, leaving the kill switch on, disconnecting SS and than run a speed test.
Would this accomplish the same thing in testing the kill switch?

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Not really ā€” thatā€™s a controlled disconnect, and the kill switch is more likely to behave ā€˜as expectedā€™ when you disconnect the VPN manually. The real test is what happens during an unexpected or random disconnect ā€” like when the VPN crashes, the connection drops, or the server fails. Thatā€™s when you find out if the kill switch truly blocks internet traffic without a VPN. Simulated tests can give false confidence. Test it when the red dot appears or something fails on its own ā€” thatā€™s the real-world scenario the kill switch is supposed to protect against.

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I recently purchased an ONN 4k Plus today and set it up. The odd thing is I could not load any of the VPN monitoring dot programs. I would download it and when the install started it would stop and give me this error: VPN monitor dot is not compatible with your TV.

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated.