What does Smart Rules do for me ?

Smart Rules is a specific CyberGhost feature to help you automatically customize CyberGhost to work with your preferences or to trigger different apps or have CyberGhost connect to a preferred server based on your needs.

To define specific rules, when and where they apply, open the 'Extended view' of CyberGhost and choose "Smart rules": 

Autostart:

Enabling the feature 'Autostart' will cause Windows to automatically start CyberGhost once the operating system has booted.

*NOTE: This will only cause CyberGhost to start(visible in the Windows systray without starting a VPN connection) and the CyberGhost icon will be grey by default which is to indicate that a VPN connection is not started)

To also start a VPN connection, also enable the feature 'Auto-connect on start-up'.

Once 'Auto-connect on start-up' is enabled, CyberGhost will also initialize a VPN connection for you. 
*Depending on your needs or preferences, it is possible to choose a country, a specific server within a country or a desired streaming program. The defaulted choice is "Best server location" which will leave CyberGhost choose a server for you. 

NOTE: If you wish to have CyberGhost connect you to the same server every time, your desired server needs to be added as a 'Favorite' and then choosing that respective server when configuring the 'Auto-connect on startup' feature.

With the VPN connection started as well, the CyberGhost icon in the systray will be fully colored which indicates to you that there is an active VPN connection.

For further customization(depending on your needs), CyberGhost has you covered! The 'Auto app launch' can give you the power to adjust CyberGhost to trigger a separate(additional) program of your choice once a VPN connection is established.

*You can choose an ".exe" for the application / program that you wish to start after the VPN connection establishes and in case you will choose an ".exe" for a torrenting program, make sure to specify a server from the 'For Torrenting' area when configuring the feature 'Auto connect on start-up'.
**The displayed screenshot above exemplifies Google Chrome(as it is the defaulted browser and may vary from one set-up to another). 

Wi-Fi Protection

CyberGhost will offer you the choice to adjust how the app will behave when given specific or various Wi-Fi networks. 

CyberGhost will detect when your laptop is in the range of a New Wi-Fi which is encrypted.

Specific behavior can be configured:

• Never Protect - CyberGhost will not take any action(will not trigger a VPN connection)
• Ask me what to do - Will display a pop-up message, where your choice or action is needed
• Always connect - CyberGhost will trigger a VPN connection for you
• Disconnect from VPN - This will cause a termination of an existing VPN connection

CyberGhost will also detect when your laptop is in the range of a New Wi-Fi which is not encrypted.

Specific behavior can be configured:

• Never Protect - CyberGhost will not take any action(will not trigger a VPN connection)
• Ask me what to do - Will display a pop-up message, where your choice or action is needed
• Always connect - CyberGhost will trigger a VPN connection for you
• Disconnect from VPN - This will cause a termination of an existing VPN connection

Exceptions

Exceptions will come in handy when a specific website or an address cannot pass through VPN and with the help of it you can exclude the respective page or address from being covered by the VPN.
*One usual case would be with incoming and outgoing e-mail protocols(such as IMAPP or POP3)

App Protection

It will come in handy when CyberGhost will trigger a VPN connection for a desired (specific) location based on the programs that you will open. Use this feature when you are trying to either torrent or stream.