SWMBO likes to travel (thankfully she doesn't make me go with her!) and the various devices I have provided to her have proven not to her liking -- two Windows laptops (one too slow, another too big), an iPad (too limited in its capabilities) and most recently a MacBook Air.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, she insisted that it must have a VPN installed in it, and therein lies the problem.

I bought a 2-year VPN subscription from NordVPN. For my subscription I am allowed to install it on five devices. It is on my computer, it works although I never use it, I have no use for a VPN. I installed it on SWMBO's iPad. It works. I installed it on her iMac, something's not right with it (won't accept my password) and I have to work on that.

But the problem arises with the MacBook Air. It worked when she left Mexico, but now NordVPN has turned her MacBook Air into a very nice looking brick.

When she boots up the MacBook,she doesn't even get to her desktop. Instead the NordVPN login screen pops up, asking for password. She puts in the password, the NordVPN UI blinks, and asks for the password. It is the correct password, we made it a very simple and frighteningly insecure password to make things easy for her.

THERE IS NO WAY TO EXIT THE NORDVPN LOGIN SHORT OF REBOOTING THE COMPUTER.

Then the process simply repeats itself. The Mac OS equivalent of ALT-F4 (Command+Q or Command+Shift+Q) have no effect on this invincible login screen. I am waiting patiently to hear back from NordVPN technical support, to no avail.

Unlikely as it sounds, I know even less about a Mac OS than I do about Windows. There must be some way of deleting NordVPN from her computer, but how can she do it when she can't ever get to her desktop?

What now?

tanstaafl.

Have her completely turn off the computer and then start it again while holding down the Shift key until the progress bar appears. That should start it in Safe Mode and will allow her to delete NordVPN by dragging it from the Applications folder to the Trash Can.

And for the record, having a VPN available on your laptop if you are travelling (and ending up using open* Wifi) is a very good idea.

I'd recommend Cloak, works very well on my Macbook. It has a handy feature that it will automatically turn itself on when it sees you've connected to an unsecured wifi network.

https://www.getcloak.com/

* when connected to an unsecured open wifi network, in a coffee shop for example, anyone who wants to can see all your network traffic. Admittedly this is becoming less of an issue as more and more sites go 100% HTTPS, but a VPN is still worthwhile.