Deferred VPN Service Initialization

When developing Android apps that utilize a VPN service, you may encounter scenarios where you want to defer the initialization of the VPN until a later point in your app's lifecycle. This can be useful for optimizing app startup time or providing more control over when the VPN service is enabled.

Implementation

  1. Modify the bools.xml file:

  • Open your app's `res/values/bools.xml` file.

  • Add the following code snippet to define a boolean resource for controlling the VPN service:

...
<resources>
    <bool name="vpn_process_enabled">false</bool>
</resources>
  • Setting vpn_process_enabled to false initially disables the VPN service.

  1. Enable the VPN service programmatically:

  • In your app's code, add the following code snippet to enable the VPN service when desired:

PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
pm.setComponentEnabledSetting(
    new ComponentName(context, AFVpnService.class),
    PackageManager.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_ENABLED,
    PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP
);
  1. Rebuild and run your app.

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