- #WHY IS MY DOWNLOAD SPEED SO SLOW WHEN I HAVE FAST INTERNET FULL#
- #WHY IS MY DOWNLOAD SPEED SO SLOW WHEN I HAVE FAST INTERNET FREE#
If you're using the OpenVPN protocol, switching TCP to UDP protocol could secure you faster speeds. That'll let you know if it really is your connection or if you happen to have a problem with that specific server.
You should definitely have a mess around with your VPN's configuration settings first, as this might solve your problem.įirst things first, try connecting to a different server to the one you're experiencing slow speeds on. If you already have a VPN and you're feeling like it's way to slow to be worth the trouble, don't make any drastic decisions just yet. Configuring your VPN settings for optimal speed
#WHY IS MY DOWNLOAD SPEED SO SLOW WHEN I HAVE FAST INTERNET FULL#
Check out our fastest VPN page for more information and a full list of other the fastest services. This way, you can choose a VPN that will have the least impact on speeds.Īdmittedly, the order of these providers does change (we test them three times a day after all) but the same ones – NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Ivacy, Surfshark etc – are almost always near the top. We run daily VPN speed tests on a list of top VPN providers so we can provide our readers with up-to-date information on who's the fastest. This means they can't throttle your bandwidth because, essentially, they don't know what you're using it for. With a VPN, however, your ISP can't see what kind of traffic you're creating, because it's all encrypted. It's a reactive measure usually deployed at individuals using a lot of bandwidth or a specific type of traffic that a number of devices on the network are creating. You can use a VPN to check if your ISP is doing you dirtyīandwidth throttling is when an internet service provider decides to purposefully slow down their network to minimize congestion. If your internet service provider is currently throttling your bandwidth (a practice that, surprisingly, is called 'bandwidth throttling) then switching to a VPN could be a good shout. There is perhaps one situation where a VPN could actually improve the speed of your connection. When you're judging or comparing VPN speeds, it's all about how minimal the impact on the speeds you'd be experiencing if there was no VPN in the picture.
The best VPN providers have such slickly run networks that use the most up-to-date servers, creating a network that has a negligible, insignificant impact on your speed. You might be wondering why so many VPN companies – and sites like ProPrivacy – refer to VPNs are 'fast' or 'quick' when, as we covered above, they can't help but slow your connection down a little bit. What does it mean to say a VPN service is 'fast'?
#WHY IS MY DOWNLOAD SPEED SO SLOW WHEN I HAVE FAST INTERNET FREE#
This issue is unlikely to affect a premium provider like ExpressVPN or Surfshark with their state-of-the-art server infrastructure, however, but is something that might happen if you use a free VPN. Similarly, congested VPN servers can lead to sluggish speeds. If there's a massive basketball game in the US and everyone wants to connect to a US server to try to watch it, the servers will struggle to accommodate good connections for everyone. Other reasons include the fact that VPNs use extremely robust encryption standards (most providers these days use AES-256, which the US government and military use to secure classified data) which, because of the simple fact encryption takes time, is another reason you might experience a slight loss of speed. The extra steps in between your device and the internet mean it's inevitably going to take more time These extra steps mean it's inevitable it takes more time. This is plain to see when you connect to a server in a completely different part of the world – even though most things are instantaneous nowadays, it's still a much, much longer distance. But in order to provide these, the one downside of a virtual private network is that they send the data and requests from your device on a longer physical route before it gets to the internet. The path your traffic takes is shown in the diagram below: In order to do this, VPN providers funnel all user traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a private server before it reaches the internet. VPNs are used to create more private browsing experiences via the masking of IP addresses. To understand why VPNs slow down your internet, we first need to get to grips with what happens when you connect to a VPN.