AirDrop and NordVPN do not play well together.

lebaz wrote:

Does anyone have any ideas about how to solve this problem?

When you connect to a VPN, you're on the VPN network. All of your network traffic is routed through the VPN. You're no longer on the local network. Therefore, AirDrop doesn't work.

You can read more about the details here: https://support.nordvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/25202605194257-Invisibility-on-a-local-network-why-we-had-to-build-a-broken-feature

Uninstall NordVPN. Why are using NordVPN?

Yes, get rid of the worthless VPN.

Never known NordVPN to play well with anything including your own computer. As recommended, uninstall it first with their provided uninstaller. Even then it is not likely to remove all the files as it never wants to be totally removed from your computer it leaves behind files that continue to launch on startup. Follow up by providing the free EtreCheck report to verify there are no other launch files or Extensions.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

Removing it from the iPhone is easier since there is no installer to hide files in the System Folder, but there are still steps that must be taken to remove the Profile.

And that may not be easy. Uninstalling it? Probably simple. Stopping the subscription payments? Not easy at all.

 NordVPN has recently been sued for deceptive practices by making it nearly impossible to unsubscribe

lebaz wrote:

Out of ignorance, probably. I didn't know if there was a better option for the MacOS.

Do you have any recommendations?

The better option is to not use a VPN unless it has been provided to you by your company or university so that you can access a secure server. VPNs like Nord do not make you safer.

Don't Use VPN Services

Long version of why you normally shouldn't be using a VPN at all. Except for business, or other professional uses, they are scams. They are not in any way personal security software. Not even a little.

Public VPNs are anything but private.

A VPN can do absolutely nothing to hide any data going between you and the site you're viewing since only half of the communication is encrypted. Anything going to the site from the VPN and back to it is in the clear, or the site you're accessing would have no idea what to do with the encrypted data.

A VPN has only two uses:

1. You're using it to send and receive content from a truly tunneled VPN at your place of employment. Only the servers at the office get the unencrypted data from you as output from the VPN. Anything coming back to you is encrypted. Meaning, anyone trying to capture data between you and the office will only ever see encrypted data. A hacker would have to somehow breach the business' server on the clear input/output side, or your end to get anything.

2. You're trying to hide yourself. Since a VPN encrypts what's coming back to you, it does a good job at hiding what IP address the data is going back to (and as the link above mentions, even this doesn't do a good job of hiding you anymore). However, any and all VPNs log this data. If you do anything illegal and law enforcement tracks the clear data back to the VPN (and they can), they'll demand log data to see what IP address the data was output to. The site running the VPN will give you up. They aren't going to go to jail for what you do.

Free VPNs sell your data (just one of many sites explaining this)

This isn't exactly breaking news. It's been known for a very long time that free VPN's (in particular) log and sell your data. How else do you think they pay for their servers?

It's the same model as Google, and in particular, Chrome. You are the product. Chrome runs a background daemon from the moment you turn your computer on, whether Chrome itself is running or not. Its job is to constantly send anonymized data back to Google about your web and personal computer usage.

No matter what web site you're communicating with, only what you send to the VPN and it sends back to you is encrypted. Every bit of data out of the VPN to the site you're visiting, and from there back to the VPN is the same as using no VPN at all. It has to be, or the sites you're visiting would just get a load of encrypted data they can't do anything with. NordVPN has recently been sued for deceptive practices by making it nearly impossible to unsubscribe

VPN reviews you find online are also almost completely untrustworthy:

Former Malware Distributor Kape Technologies Now Owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, Zenmate, and a Collection of VPN “Review” Websites

And in the modern internet world, you don’t need a VPN anyway. Most web sites now use HTTPS (secure communication). When you connect to such a site, a one-time use encryption key is generated between your browser and the site. All communication for that site is then already encrypted. A VPN does nothing but uselessly encrypt the encryption. It varies with the browser you’re using, but Safari indicates a secure connection with a small icon of a lock by the URL of the site.