I am currently using NordVPN on my Windows 10 system, and during the course of uninstalling an unrelated program, I came across something called 'TAP - NordVPN 9.21.2' on the Uninstall/Change list. NordVPN has always been on that list, and I'm guessing I just hadn't seen the 'TAP- NordVPN 9.21.2' before.
I wansn't planning to uninstall it, but I'm curious as to its function. I searched for "TAP adapters" and "TAP drivers," but I couldn't find any information telling me what a TAP driver/adapter does or why it's needed. As far as I could tell, it's connected to the function of the VPN, but I couldn't find out how or why. Only a vague mention about it being a virtual adapter for the VPN to communicate with something else. Could someone please explain this?
2 Answers
As far as I could tell, it's connected to the function of the VPN, but I couldn't find out how or why. Only a vague mention about it being a virtual adapter for the VPN to communicate with something else. Could someone please explain this?
It's a virtual network interface. It is indeed used by your VPN client.
TAP-Windows provides virtual TAP device functionality on the Windows OS.
TAP devices are virtual network kernel devices supported entirely in software – and not backed up by hardware network adapters. TAP drivers are used for TAP devices to work and they are designed with low-level kernel support for Ethernet tunneling.
Source: What are TAP-Windows adapters and why does your VPN require this Driver
Additionally,
Packets sent by an operating system via a TUN/TAP device are delivered to a user-space program which attaches itself to the device. A user-space program may also pass packets into a TUN/TAP device. In this case the TUN/TAP device delivers (or "injects") these packets to the operating-system network stack thus emulating their reception from an external source.
TAP is a vritual network kernel interface - a virtual network card if you will - used for creating a network bridge, ie. a connection between two networks.
There is an article about it on Wikipedia.
