Android Authority reviewer picks Mudfish for Android gaming over monthly VPNs

The reviewer had used ExitLag for a long time, saying it reduces ping and packet loss by finding the fastest path to a game's online server. ExitLag is not a traditional VPN, but it costs about $10 per month. The reviewer said they no longer play online games often enough to justify that monthly cost, though they sporadically log in to Albion Online and Wild Rift. They also looked at traditional VPNs such as NordVPN and Surfshark, which charge monthly subscriptions but encrypt internet traffic and make public Wi-Fi safer, but decided that was another expense they did not need.

Mudfish's core selling point is its credit system. Instead of a monthly subscription, users buy only what they need. Prices start at $5 for about 40GB of data, and the credits do not expire. The reviewer said this is plenty if the service is used for gameplay rather than downloading updates, and that the same bundle could last for years and be used only when playing ping-reliant games.

After selecting the destination region for a specific game, Mudfish initially recommends which server to connect to, the article says. Albion Online, for example, has three server locations: North America, Europe and Asia. The reviewer plays on the Asian server, which is based in Singapore. They select Singapore as the destination region, then Mudfish picks the optimized route. If that route is too unstable, the reviewer can replace it with any of hundreds of international nodes. The nodes are ordered by best ping, with the fastest at the top. On a good day, Mudfish reduces the reviewer's ping by up to 50ms, from over 100ms to sub-50ms. The article says performance gains are hit-or-miss, and there are times when Mudfish does nothing and is left off altogether.

Mudfish is available on Android, Windows, Linux, iOS and macOS. Creating an account on any platform applies to all. The reviewer made an account on Android, bought credits through Google Play and found that the credits carried over when the app was downloaded on Windows. However, the same Mudfish account cannot be used on two separate devices or platforms simultaneously. If a user is logged in to the Android app, no one can log in from another phone or desktop PC.

The biggest knock against Mudfish, according to the article, is how it handles the connection. Like ExitLag, Mudfish does not encrypt the connection. Traditional VPNs prioritize security, while Mudfish uses unencrypted connections to select the fastest possible routes. The reviewer says this is great for online games but bad for everything else, and the app should only be used for gaming and nothing else that requires secure encryption.

The reviewer's main gripe is the interface. The developers replaced the legacy app with a newer, more visually pleasing app, but the reviewer says the latter is not much of an upgrade and is more confusing than the old app. The older app, which no longer receives significant updates, has an antiquated interface but offers more straightforward controls. The newer app is more cumbersome to navigate and lacks the clear visual cues of the previous version, the article says.

Setting up Mudfish takes time, the article says. The first step is to set up the app list. Users pick the game they want Mudfish to handle, then decide which destination region to connect to. If the reviewer were to log in to Albion's North American server, they would pick US West as the destination region. The app automatically selects the most optimized server between the game and the user. In the reviewer's case, Mudfish would recommend a node in Hong Kong or Taiwan to connect to Albion's North American server. If the user is not satisfied with the server's ping performance, another node in a different region can be selected.

To further improve the connection, the article directs users to More Settings on the app's main page. Inside Connection Settings, users select Connection Mode, where four options are available: Basic as the default, Simple FEC, Advanced and Multi Path. The reviewer highly recommends experimenting with the latter three options.