Does a VPN Slowdown Your Connection Speed?
Many internet users fear that by using a VPN, they will suffer from decreased internet speed. But, the truth is that internet speed is affected by many other factors and that in some cases using a VPN can even speed up your internet connection. In this week’s Zlog post we’ll talk about the popular VPN Speed Slowdown myth and try to disprove it once and for all.
What are the Deciding Factors for Internet Speed?
To get started with the topic of the VPN Speed Slowdown myth, first we’ll talk about various factors that affect your internet speed, regardless if you’re using a VPN service or not. There are a lot of aspects that come together every time you try to connect to a website, and any of them on its own can cause your connection to perform poorly and slow you down.
Physical Distance
One of the deciding factors in your speed is your physical distance from the website you’re trying to connect to. Popularly called ‘ping’, its measured in how many milliseconds it takes for signals to reach your network destination and come back to you. The further you are from your destination, the longer it will take for the signal to bounce back to you.
Device Speed
One hardware factor can also play a deciding role – processor speed. If you have a PC, mobile or tablet device equipped with a relatively slow processor, you will face a disadvantage, as this means your device will need more time to create a connection for you.
Infrastructure
In line with processor speed, there are a host of other hoops your connecting has to jump through before it comes back to you. This includes switches, firewalls, routers, hubs, web servers and many more. If any of these are old, faulty or slow, this is directly impacting your internet connection.
ISP Speed Restrictions
This is not always the case, but sometimes your internet provider might directly affect your internet speed. This is called bandwidth throttling and there are various reasons why your ISP might implement it. Using a VPN actually helps a lot in bypassing this problem.
How to Make Sure Your VPN Doesn’t Slowdown Your Connection
We’ve briefly mentioned some of these tips in some past articles, but here are the most important things to keep in mind when connecting to a VPN:
Distance to Server
Just like the physical distance we’ve mentioned before, the distance between your location and a VPN server also plays a big part in connection speed. The nearer the server is located to you, the faster VPN speed will be.
Encryption Protocol
Most casual users know that there are a number of different VPN protocols, all with their own pros and cons. Some protocols offer enhanced security, while others emphasize connection speed. The higher the encryption level is, the more secure and reliable your protection is. However, this also comes with a loss in the internet speed.
It’s a matter of your personal preference, and you can choose between protocols depending on if you need maximum speed on strong encryption. In this context, if you’re going for increased internet speed you can use OpenVPN or IKEv2 over other protocols in order to get the best resullts.
Number of VPN Users
If too many users connect to the same server, they can eat up all of the bandwidth. This problem is easily fixable, as all you need to do is find a server that doesn’t have a large number of users on it.
How to Use VPN’s to Increase Connection Speed
While many people believe a VPN service will always decrease your connection speed, more often than not, the scenario is completely opposite. There are many cases where you can use a VPN to increase your internet speed and establish a more stable connection. The most popular one is connecting to servers geographically closer to your target content.
For example, if you’re from Europe and want to access content in Canada, connecting to a US server will dramatically lower high ping. This means that, rather than going back to your ISP for every connection request, your requests will come from a nearby VPN server, which will directly result in better loading times and faster connection speed.
Final Words
If you’re using a tried-out VPN service that is reputable and reliable, there will be fewer chances of VPN speed degradation. Of course, this could always happen, as the speed doesn’t only depend on the VPN service, but on all of the factors, we’ve talked about in this article. The VPN Speed Slowdown myth is exactly that, a myth that can easily be disproved if you know the right tips and tricks.
We hope you enjoyed reading this week’s Zlog installment. To ensure you have the best possible VPN experience, make sure you select a provider that offers you a safe and stable service. Join ZoogVPN today and browse in complete anonymity and security, without sacrificing VPN speed and online entertainment.
- Yaroslav S.
