Downloading lots of data on launch. Does NordVPN for Mac auto update?

I couldn’t help but notice today that when I opened up NordVPN, it started downloading a bunch of data for several minutes at 600kB/s+ (seeing this via iStatMenus). What is it doing? Is it auto-updating? I can’t find any auto-update settings for it. I’d prefer if I could do manual updates.

This is on a MacBook Pro with MacOS Sequoia 15.3.1.

EDIT: A couple of hours later, NordVPN prompted me if I wanted to update. It didn’t download anything while it updated. So I can only conclude that yes, it automatically downloaded an update. How can I stop this? I’d like to be prompted for the download too.

When VPN is enabled, all traffic is routed through it. So it may look like it is NordVPN using the data

My guess is that it probably is trying to update. I can’t say for sure though because I haven’t checked its activity on the latest version. There is no manual update option btw. There used to be but these days it’s auto-update only.

On my machine (OS 15.3.1) I reverted from v8.34 to 8.32.1 because of problems that the recent update(s) were causing. Now, with 8.32.1 installed, every time I start my computer a window will soon pop up asking me to give permission for nord to update. I press cancel.

All apps are closed except Nordvpn and Activity Monitor, yet I notice that the received column for NordVPN in AM jumps to about 268 MB within approx 30 seconds after startup. In the same column Nord’s helper tool shows a similar number of MBs. Quite a lot!

Like you I’d prefer that nord left the choice of downloading up to the user. It would be fine if their app was free of problems, but it isn’t. I’ve asked their support team in the past if it was possible to prevent the app from auto-updating, or whether they could add an option for this. They said it wasn’t and nothing came of the request unfortunately.

Anyway, this is really just a confirmation that the app is most likely trying to update.

Yes, I know, and usually it’ll show both NordVPN and some other app with similar activity, but this time it was *just* NordVPN…

Thanks for sharing your experience!

Because the other app was not transmitting anything at that time

Are you saying NordVPN waited to do the other app’s download?