The most reliable approach for Steam Deck is with a systemd user service . It runs quietly in the background, works in both Desktop and Game modes, and survives system updates (reinstall only if Pacman packages are wiped). Avoid GUI clients – they add unnecessary overhead on the Deck’s constrained resources.
For users in heavily censored regions (e.g., China, Iran, Russia during peak times), v2Ray’s default protocols may be detected. steam deck v2ray
"routing": "rules": [