Mullvad VPN only working with UDP-over-TCP on Kicksecure 17/18

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Mullvad VPN will only establish connections when the anti-censorship mode “UDP-over-TCP” is enabled. Using that mode produces very low internet speeds (~2,000 kb/s) and an unstable link. This behavior occurs only on Kicksecure, so I suspect it’s caused by specific system hardening measures in this distribution.

Has anyone found a fix or workaround?

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Trying to figure out what flavor
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I have experienced the same issue, even my speed is 20 times lower than yours because I am connecting from a coubtry wiyh heavily censorship.

I can’t say it’s related to Kicksecure even though I can say that:

  1. Since summer 2025, I could not even connect to Mullvad VPN withn Kicksecure 17, never being able to establish a connection

  2. Under Kicksecure 18 the VPN connects but it’s extremely slow and often disconnects

Maybe not related but as Tor is totally blocked here (I can’t for example run Whonix because of that or have always sdwdate time out), I may suspect some my ISP is blocking things so much that my internet connection is barely usable for privacy purposes, including the use of VPN

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I’m between pop, Ubuntu or kicksecure. Ubuntu is looking more and more unusable because of AI integration. The pop seems better but lacks the security of kicksecure from what I have read.

I like most things I read up on. The thing that popped out are that mullvad vpn won’t work unless the comp is on a specific setting. That setting takes the speed you have and turns it to dialup. That brought me to the fact I’m questioning this if so.

I like this, it seems like a way I want to go. That scared me however. I need security, I don’t like things that aren’t as secure as they should be.

Please help me out with this decision
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Could you share a link to where you saw this? I’m aware that there may be some difficulties with Mullvad VPN but I’m not sure I recognize this particular issue.

(Edit: This post, and the one above it and below it were previously a separate post. Merged them here so that everything related to slow Mullvad VPN performance can be in a single thread.)

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I’m sorry for not posting it Mullvad VPN only working with UDP-over-TCP on Kicksecure 17/18

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