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Can VPN be overloaded? How to fix an overloaded VPN?

4 min. read

Updated onOctober 4, 2023

updated onOctober 4, 2023

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Key notes

We’re living in a world where seemingly private activities such as accessing a website from the comfort of your own home can be made public. There are several third parties that can get between you and your online whereabouts.

For instance, your ISP is just a few clicks away from getting a full report of your online activities. Sure, it can’t read emails or see your account passwords, but it knows what websites you visited and files you downloaded.

And that’s already too much.

However, things don’t need to be that way. Nowadays, there’s a huge selection of privacy tools that can help you protect your privacy. And the best, most powerful ones are, without a doubt,VPNs.

VPNscan easily help you put some walls between you and whoever feels like spying on you. It redirects your traffic through a secure tunnel, but not without encrypting it first.

Thus, even if someone were able to take a peek inside that tunnel, your traffic would look like gibberish.

However, what happens if theVPNservercan’t take it anymore? Let’s find out.

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How does a VPN work?

From a workload standpoint, aVPNis similar to any regularserver. It can house a certain number of connections and, as the number of users reaches the limit, it becomes more and more difficult for it to allocate resources.

First and foremost, keep in mind that you’re almost never alone on aVPNserver. That’s why providers mention shared IP addresses. After connecting to aVPNserver, your defaultIP addressis replaced by theserver‘s address.

But many other users who use the sameserverwill have the same address.

So, it’s really not rocket science to figure out thatVPNserverscan’t keep accepting connection requests forever and have to stop at some points. That’s why the bestVPNservices have huge networks in the first place.

Can VPN get overloaded?

Yes, there’s no way to sugar coat it,VPNscan and do get overloaded regularly. Much so during unfortunate events such as natural disasters and pandemics, when a lot of people need to work from home and generally spend more time indoors.

Considering that aVPNshould fix issues such aspacket lossandnetwork congestion, an overloadedservercould be quite inconvenient.

Additionally, we’ve already explained howVPNaffects Internet speed. Thus, it should be no surprise that an overloadedVPNservercan affect your Internetspeedeven more.

What to do if your VPN is overloaded?

Although these are not exactly ways to solve an overloadedVPNissue, they can help you alleviate problems that an overloadedservercan cause you.

VPNs with large server networks

We’ve put together a list of our recommendations for the bestVPNsthat have largeservernetworks. Take a look:

Keep in mind that the number ofserversshouldn’t be the only thing you judge aVPNafter. However, for the purpose of avoiding an overload situation, this is quite a strong criterion.

Private Internet Access

Yes, VPN can get overloaded

To wrap it up, it’s true thatVPNcan get overloaded, much so during natural disasters and pandemics. This, in turn, could lead to other issues such as slow Internet speed, packet loss, and jitter.

However, bypassing aVPNoverload is quite simple, compared to other potential issues. Merely switching theserveryou’re currently on or changing the location should take care of things for good.

Can VPN be overloaded? How to fix an overloaded VPN?#

How does a VPN work?#

Can VPN get overloaded?#

What to do if your VPN is overloaded?#

VPNs with large server networks#

Private Internet Access#

Yes, VPN can get overloaded#