The meaning of the colored dots

I’m not clear on the meaning or importance of the colored dots given to each server.

Red, yellow, and green have obvious meanings. But often a red or yellow server will have a lower listed access time than a green server! And the macOS app doesn’t prevent me from attaching to a non-green server.

Should I always attach to the fastest server in my favorites list?

Thanks for your question! We have identified some issues with the logic of color codes specifically in the desktop apps - in some cases they don’t correlate with latency temporarily. Normally there would be clear correlation with ms provided (red=high, yellow=acceptable, green = good). Investigation and fix in progress.

the dots symbolise the ping from your location to the ivpn server. a higher ping (red) means the data from your location to the server takes more time to travel to and from - making the connection slower.

the ping, whilst accurate in broad terms, may vary slightly every time as your data travels through different paths to reach the ivpn server - or if there is great congestion on the chosen route.

your phone will not prevent you from accessing a “red” destination because - even though apple makes it a habbit of limiting your options to suit their own vision of how their devices should be used, there might be a legitimate reason why you would want to connect to a server far from your location and with a low ping; for example, when accessing sites from that particular location that geoblock their content.