Why is My VPN Slow – Factors That Might Be Causing Slow VPN Performance

December 24, 2019 By Johan Curtis No Comments 4 minutes

VPN is a privacy tool that gives you the power to secure your internet browsing experience. For some, it’s a software that allows them to unblock geo-restricted websites and content, for others its way to securely make transactions online using unsecured networks.

As a FastestVPN user, you get access to 250+ servers worldwide, and P2P-optimized servers that can handle P2P traffic such as torrenting. VPN opens up the freedom to surf the web unrestricted, but there are factors that impact performance. These factors determine the speed you get when you are connected to the VPN server, and you can address some of them to get the best experience possible.

Here Are Some Factors That Affect or May Be Affecting Your VPN Connection Speed.

· Distance to the VPN Server

Performance depends on how far you are from the server that’s handling your requests and returning them back. Latency refers to the time it takes for your request to travel and return relevant information on your screen.

You can fix that by connecting to the nearest server from your geographic location. For example, if you are in the United States it is better to connect to a server in Canada than one in Russia or Australia.

· Free VPNs

As a rule, you should never use free VPNs if you are serious about privacy. More than that, they are severely limited in both performance and features. Free VPNs offer you the slowest server, and most free VPNs don’t let you change to a different VPN server.

It’s effective only as far as unblocking websites are concerned. But for the best security and speed, always use a paid VPN.

· Protocol and Encryption

FastestVPN supports up to AES 256-bit encryption. It’s one of the most powerful encryption standards available today, and cracking it is virtually impossible because of the massive computational power required. But with that security comes the compromise of speed. For the average user, it may not be a problem, but when you’re streaming something like a 4K movie, every bit of performance counts.

You can try switching to other protocols which are faster but may be less secure. Our first recommendation is that you switch from TCP to UDP. UDP is faster than TCP because it prioritizes speed over the reliability as it doesn’t verify the order of packets sent.

FastestVPN supports PPTP, L2TP, IKEv2, and OpenVPN (TCP and UDP) protocols. PPTP is the fastest of the bunch because of weak encryption. It is not recommended unless you are not doing something sensitive.

· Peak Traffic

Peak traffic refers to the time when a service experiences the most number of users. Usually, you will find the most traffic on US and UK servers. It is possible that slow performance is due to the server being overwhelmed fulfilling too many requests at the time. If you don’t plan to access region-specific content then try switching to a different region server.

· Wi-Fi

VPN Wireless router connections are not ideal if you want the best performance. Signal strength takes a hit as you move away from the router, and obstacles such as walls and floors become a big barrier. If you have the option, switch to a wired connection.

· Update App

It is possible that you are running an old version with a bug that’s affecting performance or making frequent disconnections. Ensure that you are running the latest apps.

Conclusion

It might sound like a broken record but have you tried turning it off and on again? At times, the simplest fixes are the solution and they only take a few seconds. Try restarting both your device and the router, and see if the problem still persists.

You should always go with paid VPNs. For example, FastestVPN is packed with features that you just will not find on free VPN services. If you are in the market for a VPN, check out FastestVPN’s Christmas Deal.

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