Does VPN Slow Down the Internet? (Full Details)

Does VPN really slow down the internet?

The answer is yes, but it depends upon what type of VPN service you are using.

If you are using a premium-quality VPN service then you won’t probably notice that your connection is slowed down.

So, how does that happen, and how does VPN affect your internet?

Let’s discuss everything in detail:

Why does my Internet Speed Slow Down when using a VPN?

A VPN sends the data and requests from your device before it gets to the internet to provide all those facilities.

As VPN services provide several facilities and features at the same time, it is quite understandable that they slow down the speed of the internet a little bit.

Also, to be able to connect to different servers from a single VPN service from another part of the world, will obviously take a much longer time.

Due to the time consumption, the internet speed is compromised sometimes.

How does a VPN affect the internet connection?

So, how exactly a VPN affects your internet speed, let’s move further to know that.

Here are some of the reasons why VPN slows down your internet speed:

Encryptions and Rerouting

Several VPNs use strong encryptions like AES-256, which is military-grade and for government use too.

Also, to finish the encryption task, VPN services will encrypt your traffic and reroute your traffic to a secured server instead of a public one.

So, these very strong encryptions will take much time which slows down the internet speed.

Server and Quality

The servers of your VPN will process every data you transfer when you are connected to a network.

Due to the continuous inward and outward processing of data, your server will subsequently get tired and drained out which will ultimately affect your connection speed.

Free VPNs or free versions of VPNs are fully loaded due to extreme loads of data in a small number of servers.

Hence, due to this, the connections will subsequently get slower and you will see lag during gaming, streaming, and more on the websites.

Distance and Location

To access content from different websites of different countries, you need to connect to the servers from those countries.

Hence, when you are connected to a server in a country that is really far away from you, then your server is likely to get slower as the distance will result in taking more time for the server to get connected.

Why does VPN slow down iPhone’s internet?

When using a VPN, the internet connection is found to be slower on iPhone because, despite the fact that the iPhone provides the facility of using the Internet via both mobile data and Wifi at the same time, VPN actually doesn’t go along with that.

Reason?

Due to this, the internet connection of the iPhone is slowed down.

Also, the slowdown of your iPhone’s internet depends on the type of protocols used by your VPN.

There are some protocols that use two layers of TCP protocols to tunnel the data through, resulting in two layers of redundancy due to which the internet connection is slowed down.

Does ExpressVPN slow down the internet?

ExpressVPN is one of the most popular VPN services out there.

However, it is found that despite the fact that ExpressVPN has lots of facilities, features, and offers, it slows down the internet.
Due to the strong layers of encryption it uses, your internet connection is likely to get slower with ExpressVPN.

However, the slowdown of your result could result from you connecting to a server location that is really far away from where you are located.

Why is my internet faster with a VPN?​​

Even though your internet connection is likely to get slow down with a VPN, in some cases it could be just the opposite too.
Your internet could be faster with the use of a VPN due to several features of a VPN.
Evades bottle throttling

Your internet service provider (ISP) can slow down the connection in order to reduce congestion through bottle throttling.

Bottle throttling is a way of limiting your bandwidth usage and online activities on the internet.

Hence, with the use of a VPN, you can actually escape bottle throttling as a VPN will not let your ISP see the type of traffic you are creating through strong encryption.

Also, they won’t be able to monitor your online activities and control them due to the strong security provided by different protocols of VPN services.

Benefits of using a VPN

One of the significant benefits of a VPN is its ability to help with routing.

It works by encrypting the traffic from your device and sending it to the VPN server, where it’s decrypted and routed to the intended destination.

By doing this, VPN helps to hide your IP address, making it difficult for anyone to trace your online activity.

Additionally, it allows you to bypass geo-restrictions and access content that may be blocked in your region.

Whether you’re using a VPN for personal or business purposes, it can be a powerful tool to enhance your online privacy and security.

How to make your VPN run faster?

Using the right tools, techniques, and settings, you can make your VPN run faster.

Here are some of the ways of making your VPN run faster:

1) Check your internet connection speed

Sometimes, the actual culprit behind the slowdown of your internet connection is your own device or the router you are using.

Hence, first, you need to check your connection to your device. To do so, you can restart your device or router and see if your connection is faster or not after the restart.

This will determine whether your VPN is the reason behind your slow connection or not.

If not then, you should think of changing your router or updating your device or router.

2) Switch your protocol

If you want a faster speed in your internet connection, you should switch to UDP protocols. As for the stable connection, you should try out TCP protocols.

NordVPN has a lightning-fast protocol that gives out strong encryption as well as fast speeds.

3) Change your server location

As already mentioned before, you know that sometimes your connection gets slower if you are connected to a server location that is really far away from you.

Hence, you can go for a closer server location for better internet speed.

4) Alter your encryption level

Using a high level of encryption will also let your VPN slow down your internet connection.

Thus, to avoid so, you need to switch your encryption level to a compatible one that will not slow your connection.
Go for a wired connection

If you are using the same network to connect to several devices at the same time, then it will surely slow down your connection speed.

Wireless connections generally use several devices to transmit data at the same time resulting in slower speeds.

You can prevent that by using a wired connection to get faster speeds.

5) Turn off the firewall and other software

Sometimes, firewalls and other local software on your device could be the real reasons behind the slower speeds as they infilter loads of data.

So, you can turn off that software to check whether they are making your connection sluggish or not.

However, you should remember that disabling them could be a threat to your device as they secure your device from threats like viruses, malware, ads, and more.

Final Takeaway

We have found out that VPNs indeed slow down your internet connections due to several reasons.

However, as already said there could be other reasons behind the slowdown of your connection such as device problems, connection problems, router problems, and more.

As for the VPN problems, you should use a premium VPN with a faster speed to avoid this kind of issue.