While faster VPN connection is your buddy, slower connection is your enemy, especially when you’re torrenting or streaming on sites.
So today, I will teach you how to make your VPN connection faster, I mean as fast as the speed of light.
Why is your VPN connection slow?
You may have noticed a significant decrease in speed and quality of downloads and streaming while running on a VPN.
Your internet connection suddenly runs flat and becomes slower than your normal speed before you connected your VPN.
This can adversely affect your browsing experience and we don’t want that, so let’s dive into it.
There are a number of reasons for that.
- VPN Company Service (No of Servers)
Whether you like it or not, your favorite VPN might be the reason why your internet is not as fast you want.
Many VPN companies offer very little servers that becomes very crowded as their customers increase.
The strength of a server serving an IP, can only hold a handful of people at a time.
This is in turn means there are only a number of requests an IP or server can handle at a particular speed.
So as a rule of thumb, if that limit is exceeded, the server will start lagging and take more time to complete some processes.
Another way to look at this is when 5 of 8 users on a single server are streaming or torrenting. There’s no argument that the VPN speed will not be anywhere near fast.
It will be extremely slow!
- Free VPNs
How fast your VPN speed is, can also be determined by your VPN plan.
Free VPNs have only a handful of servers that cannot serve the number of people actually using the free VPN service.
It’s more like a small orange tree, seving a whole town. That’s a lot of pressure there. It will surely wither fast or lose its quality.
In addition to that, the connection will be survival of the fittest.
- Server Location or Distance
The location of the server you are connected to, will determine how fast your VPN will be.
Let’s say you are in the India and you connect to a VPN location in UK, the time it will take the information to be transferred from your phone to VPN and then from VPN to your target database will take a longer time.
If you compare this with someone connecting to a UK location while they’re also in UK, it will make the VPN have a faster connection than the former.
- Protocol
Protocols play a vital role in the speed of VPNs.
They determine the encryption level of VPNs and therefore mostly have direct impacts on speed.
The encryption protocols that VPNs use are WireGuard, OpenVPN (TCP and UDP), Ikev2 and Stealth.
According to NordVPN, WireGuard is the fastest and most secure protocol.
Basically, the higher the level of encryption, the slower the speed might be. So using UDP will make your VPN connection faster than using TCP.
- Device Overheating
If you’re a chronic streamer, then your device will surely overheat at some point.
Your VPN might not be as fast as you want if your phone’s CPU is lagging from overheating. This has a direct effect on the performance of your VPN.
How to make your VPN connection faster
- Choose a Closer Location
If you’re in an African country like South Africa or Nigeria, you may want to choose a country closer to you on your VPN.
Choosing a closer location will make your VPN connection speed faster than you can imagine.
You can decide to choose your country location too, as long as it changes your IP.
If however, you’re more concerned about changing your country, probably to access some restricted sites, choose the eligible country closer to you, geographically.
- Choose a Better VPN
Your favourite VPN might be the cause of your slow connection.
Try switching VPNs occasionally and compare their speeds. If on the average, another VPN connects faster than your present one, then it’s an indicator that your VPN is the problem.
Choosing a VPN can be tricky though. If you’re keen on security and don’t want your activities monitored online, choose VPNs that do not store logs.
These logs can be retrieved anytime and sold to anyone, which in turn can be used to spy on you.
- Get a Premium VPN
One of the obvious ways to make your VPN faster that people know but choose to ignore is buying a premium VPN.
Premium VPNs from reputable companies like Windscribe and NordVPN will help with your speed.
Since you will be sharing the servers with only paid users too, and moreover you are paying. So there will be no overcrowding of servers at anytime.
Not all VPNs are worth upgrading to premium though, so be careful when you choose how and which one you spend your money.
Security and performance should be your top priorities!
- Prevent Device Overheating
Like I established earlier, overheating is your enemy when it comes to VPN speed.
Overheating has a direct effect on your CPU and this, thus have effect on the overall performance of your phone.
Since your VPN is an app, the performance will also be affected and it will take a toll on your speed.
In case you experience this, all you have to do is restart your phone.
Allow it to cool down for a bit before you pick it up to use again.
- Choose the Right Protocol
A good hack to getting the right speed for your VPN is to choose the right VPN protocol.
VPNs like NordVPN and WindscribeVPN give you the opportunity to choose which protocol you want your VPN to operate on.
You should however, keep it in mind that faster protocols mean less encryption and security while slower protocols ensure high security.
Although, WireGuard is an exception for this since it’s highly fast and the most secure. The only problem is, it’s still unstable for now.
So, if you’re concerned about faster speeds, you should choose TCP. You can however check out Ikev2 as well.
Trying out all the protocols for the best one that works for you is also a great idea to tackle your problem and make the right choice.
