Questions about VPNs.

mickmac76

Hi
I have just this week tried using a VPN while connecting to the internet and I've found it frustrating. My internet speed drops somewhat which I expected but the VPN is randomly dropping the entire conection quite frequently and won't reconnect for 5 - 10 minutes which is very frustrating. I don't have a great internet connection speed where I live, usually around 11Mbps when the advertised speed is only 12Mbps but I don't have problems with dropped connections prior to this. Is the slow internet speed where I live contributing to the problems. I've been using NordVPN and Tunnel Bear VPN this last week to test VPNs. Just using the free versions at the moment but I'm happy to pay for them if they work. I'm just not prepared to pay if the problems this week will continue.

SweetCaliber

mickmac76 wrote: »

Hi
I have just this week tried using a VPN while connecting to the internet and I've found it frustrating. My internet speed drops somewhat which I expected but the VPN is randomly dropping the entire conection quite frequently and won't reconnect for 5 - 10 minutes which is very frustrating. I don't have a great internet connection speed where I live, usually around 11Mbps when the advertised speed is only 12Mbps but I don't have problems with dropped connections prior to this. Is the slow internet speed where I live contributing to the problems. I've been using NordVPN and Tunnel Bear VPN this last week to test VPNs. Just using the free versions at the moment but I'm happy to pay for them if they work. I'm just not prepared to pay if the problems this week will continue.

Generally speaking VPN's are likely to be somewhat slower than your connection, especially free version's of VPN's. It all depends on the company as well and their server setup like how many people are on the server etc..

If you're able to, try different locations on the VPN's, ones closer to Ireland and not so congested.

mickmac76

Thanks, does the distance to the server matter. For example if I where to try a server in the UK and a server in Canada both with similar numbers of people on them would the more distant server be slower/more prone to disconnecting.

Xterminator

For best performance when using a VPN you should connect to the VPN server closest to the website or service you wish to use, and then as close as possible to your own location.

For example, if I want to access US Netflix from the UK I would connect to a server located in the US, but as close as possible to the UK (somewhere on the northern East Coast, such a New York, would be ideal).

mickmac76

Thanks for the reply.

srsly78

Turn off default gateway for vpn, then your normal traffic won't take a speed hit. Of course if you want ALL your traffic going thru the vpn then you just gotta put up with it.

mickmac76

srsly78 wrote: »

Turn off default gateway for vpn, then your normal traffic won't take a speed hit. Of course if you want ALL your traffic going thru the vpn then you just gotta put up with it.

Thanks but can you clarify the above. If I turn off the default gateway what traffic doesn't travel through the VPN.

srsly78

Well that depends on your setup. Many people use vpns for work, and they only want stuff addressed to the work network to go through vpn. All their normal browsing etc can be routed as normal (without using vpn).

You might look into vpn configuration to see how to tell it to only route your "special" traffic.

On windows (using the builtin vpn) the default gateway can be changed by clicking properties on the connection and unchecking tickbox under ipv4 somewhere. This only changes the default tho, the system still needs some way of knowing what traffic should go into vpn. With work stuff this is usually obvious because vpn connects directly to work subnet. In the case where the target site is accessible both by vpn/normal there is an ambiguity.

To answer your question properly:
The default setting for many vpn software packages is to probably send all your traffic thru vpn - which makes everything slow as you have noticed. If you change this setting then NO traffic will be routed thru vpn unless there is an explicit route for it. How to configure this route depends on the package you use.

mickmac76

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm only setting up the VPN for personal use and was intending to send all traffic through the VPN but I'll have a rethink.