Hi, I’ve been using a premium VPN for a while now (would mention which one but thats against the rules it seems) and I usually auto connect it to a server in my own country, which should allow for good speed. However, I noticed it will significantly lower download speed, and occasionally it slows my internet connection down to the point where nothing is loading at all. Disconnecting from the VPN always fixes these issues immediately, so it seems clear to me that it’s the VPN and not something else. Pretty disappointing experience for a premium, highly rated VPN. Is this common? Does anyone have tips on what to do to improve it?
It’s both on phone and laptop btw, hardware is pretty new, software is up to date.
That’s to be expected depending on the VPNs server load and other factors outside of your control.
Yeah vpn’s generally slow down your connection I have found that with mine on my TV I only use it whenever I need to and I have a much faster connection and I mean a difference between 30 to 40 download speed to upwards of 80 when I connect it just when I need it versus letting it stay on all the time
you are basically using someone elses internet connection so they need the bandwidth, the multi hops thing people are saying is just added latency not bandwidth
VPN proxies your network traffic therefore it always slow sdown your internet speed at least a little bit. Ideally that should not be noticeable.
Check your VPN settings, specifically for protocol. If there’s a wireguard option, choose that over openVPN. Wireguard is ~twice as fast.
Additionally my VPN displays speed in ms near gateway choice. You can choose a faster gateway manually.
If problem is recent, the server provider for the VPN may be to blame (under ddos attacks or something similar).
Thanks for the answer. Never heard about this being a common thing. It’s pretty much a dealbreaker for me tbh, I’d like my VPN to be always on but it makes for a pretty frustrating internet experience this way…
You have to keep in mind, the data you’re requesting now has to travel x amount of new distance to the VPN server first before it’s then fed back to you and also due to how the internet is built, the connection between you and the VPN server might not be a direct path vs you might actually have a direct path to the data source itself say like youtube.
You —> Youtube might be 2 hops but You —> VPN —> youtube (then again in reverse) might be 20 hops, on top of that, if the VPN server is overloaded, it might take time to send and receive the data you need thus slowing it down more.
It’s not always going to be this slow but you shouldn’t expect the same speeds as your non-VPN’ed connection
This is the standard for how all VPN providers seem to work: Cram as many users onto a server as possible.
I’ve launched a VPn startup which does things the complete opposite: Give users the most resources as we can.
Check my profile, we are doing an open BETA now (free) for a little while longer.
That makes sense. Just never really considered that would be too much of a noticeable issue. Even heard stories of a VPN improving someones connection to for example minecraft servers abroad, by using a VPN server in that country. But I guess those situations are the exception then. I need to rethink my VPN use. Thanks again for providing me with answers!
They can help, but those situations happen by random chance and often in areas where the network infrastructure is lacking.
Take someone in a far away country like New Zealand, they want to connect to a server in the US, their default ISP might route them the wrong way around the globe but a VPN might connect them a different “shorter” route to improve their connection ping.
Their ISP connects them through Australia to Europe then to the US where the VPN could connect them to Mexico then to the US.