In article , Arlen George Holder
wrote:


same way as while not on vpn.

That's not my experience, so maybe something isn't what I think it is?

then you're doing something wrong. no surprise there.

1. I can put a domain in my HOSTS file, e.g., 127.0.0.1 google.com
2. Then I can't go to that domain from my local PC anymore (which is ok)
3. But then, I connect to a VPN service (e.g., https://www.freeopenvpn.org/)
4. I can connect to google.com (even though that's in my local HOSTS file)

Clearly, it uses the vpn services' hosts file.
This makes sense because the entire connection goes though that host.
I can't imagine it working any other way by default.

no, it doesn't make sense for it to work that way.