When you launch the app, it immediately connects to the server it thinks is best.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it’s a frictionless experience.
On the other, it might not be clear to users that the app is doing anything at all,
since they haven’t clicked anything. You can disable this behavior in the
settings, if you choose.
I am pleased that the app echoes the look of the
Mullvad website, with large text and bold blocks of
color. The app is centered around a map, but this
creates a problem. City locations are marked on the
map, and sometimes this is overlapped by the
connection status text. This renders it unreadable.
Another issue: The app is vertically oriented,
making it look very much as though the design of
the mobile app was simply brought to Windows.
The large buttons and text would be great on a
phone, which has a small screen held a good
distance from your face, but this is a desktop app.
The result is a cramped, almost claustrophobic
experience. It’s as though you’re looking at the
application through a mouse hole in the baseboard,
and you have to manipulate it with a long stick. A
coherent design across platforms is a great thing to strive for, but this app needs
room to breathe.
Once connected, the app displays your real IP address, your new VPN-produced
IP address, the name of the server you’re using, and the protocol used to secure
your connection. That’s handy, but not particularly useful.
Click the Switch Location button to do that thing. You’re presented with a list of
countries that can be expanded to show cities, which in turn open to show the
individual servers in that area. I really like the level of control this allows. If you
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would be better if the Mullvad app included information about each server,
such as its current user load. All the app offers now is a green dot (you can use
it) or a red dot (better not). It would also be useful to be able to favorite those
servers so you can come back to them later.