Security News > 2022 > November > Windows 11 is getting a VPN status indicator in the taskbar
Windows 11 may soon show a system tray indicator notifying when your computer is connected to a VPN, allowing users wishing to browse anonymously to ensure they are connected.
As first reported by Neowin, Twitter user PhantomOcean3 discovered that Windows 11 'Dev' build 25247 includes a new hidden feature that, when enabled, displays a small shield icon overlaid the Network system tray icon when connected to a VPN. The image below above have been made larger, and the shield is relatively small in practice, so if this makes it into production, we should expect the shield to be more prominent.
There are some limitations to the new feature, as it only works when connecting to VPNs configured using the built-in Windows 11 client and does not work with WiFi.
"This *seems* to work only if you connect to a VPN from the quick setting or the Network & internet > VPN page in Settings," PhantomOcean3 tweeted about the new feature.
If you wish to test out the new Windows 11 VPN indicator, you can join the Windows Insider program and install the current Windows 11 build or later.
Download ViveTool, which enables hidden developer features in Windows 10 and Windows 11.