Does a VPN slow down your internet? 5 ways to speed up your VPN

When all else fails, follow these steps to max out your VPN speeds

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

If you’ve read our original guide onhow to speed up your VPN, you’ll know that a VPN is an excellent way to protect your online privacy and unblock websites.

However, since aVPNconnection from your “client” device involves establishing an encrypted tunnel to aVPN server. This involves extra processing power and bandwidth, so can slow the speed at which websites and other online services load.

In our original guide, we discussed some of the most common reasons why your VPN connection can be slow, as well as ways to fix it. Here, we’ll take a look at 5 more ways you can speed up your connection if you’re using a VPN.

1. Use a router

If you have a VPN subscription, you usually need to install the VPN software on each device you want to use it on individually. This can sometimes cause issues, as your provider may not offer software for that device or it may not have been updated in a while.

Fortunately, you bypass this by using aVPN router, or running the VPN software on a router. Running the VPN software directly on the router has a number of advantages, particularly as every device in your home or organization can connect to the VPN via it.

Generally this is also faster, as the router’s ownCPUhandles the messy business of establishing and maintaining encrypted tunnels within the VPN for all your devices. If you’re interested in doing this, we strongly recommend using open-source router firmware such asDD-WRT,Open-WRTorTomato. As these projects are open source, it’s likely that updates will be available for them.

2. Supercharge your broadband

This may sound obvious but your VPN speed is going to be determined by your overall broadband speed.

Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed!

The first step to checking if your broadband speed is the issue is to run aspeed testto see if your ISP’s claims match the speeds you’re currently getting. Many providers only promise speed within a certain range but don’t be afraid to shop around to see if there are others who can guarantee faster minimum speeds.

The very best speeds are those offered byfibre broadband, so see if you can get a good deal on this if you aren’t subscribed already.

If you use mobile broadband and your speeds are slow, this may be because you are in an area with poor reception.

3. VPN Bonding

VPN Bonding helps speed up your connection by spreading the data packets for your VPN connection across your entire network using multiple methods like DSL and 4G. This helps share the data load, and therefore boosts your connection speeds.

One of the best-known VPN providers to do this isSpeedify, which has a special software implementation of VPN Bonding that allows you to share your internet traffic across all connection types. In theory, this means if one of your connections is slow, such as mobile broadband, the software will automatically start shunting your data through a faster one.

This can hugely speed up your connection and has advantages over traditional ‘load balancing’ techniques in that it works for all protocols such as web browsing, P2P and so on.

If you’re considering using Speedify though, be warned that in our tests we had difficulty connecting to the specificP2Pservers. There are other open-source implementations of VPN Bonding available but you’d need to have your own server and set up the various VPN connections yourself to make use of them.

4. Refresh your DNS

DNS serversact like a virtual telephone directory for the Internet. When you try to access a web page for the first time, it’s these servers which translate the website address into a machine-readable name.

Believe it or notyour choice ofDNSservercan impact your connection speed. This is because if your device doesn’t have the unique IP address of the website you want to visit already stored in its ‘cache’, it will request this from your ISP’s DNS server. This machine may not be located close to you, so it can take some time for your device to connect.

One way to fix this is to configure your device to use apublic DNS server. Services like those offered by Google andOpenDNSare not only free but attach your IP address to connection requests so responses come from the fastest available server.

If you’re using a reputable VPN provider, they should route all DNS requests via their own servers. If they don’t do this, then it would be possible for someone with access to your ISP’s records to tell what sites you’re visiting. This is known asDNS leak.

DNS leaks can also be cause by software misconfigurations. In February 2024, it was discovered that a bug in ExpressVPN’s split tunneling feature had potentially beencausing a DNS leak for years.

5. Prefer proxies

Many VPN providers such asNordVPNalso support allowing you to connect applications to their service via  secureSOCKS5proxy.

This isn’t the same as a VPN. You can connect a single app via a SOCKS5proxywithout your VPN service running at all. These days, SOCKS5 usesUDP vs TCPprotocol, which can provide faster connection speeds, at the price of less reliable connections.

SOCKS5 connections are routed through aproxy server, concealing yourIP addressbut the main reason they can do so faster than VPNs is that they don’t encrypt your traffic. Take some time to decide if the extra speed is worth the reduced privacy. For more information, see our guideProxy vs VPN: What are the differences?

Need for speed

While it’s important to make a choice that’s right for you, remember speed isn’t everything. There are faster ways to connect and download data than using a reliable VPN provider to encrypt all your web traffic but these come at the cost of putting your data at risk. Take some time to research your options, especially when looking for thefastest VPNsout there, to find out which is best for you.

TechRadar Pro created this content as part of a paid partnership with ExpressVPN.

Nate Drake is a tech journalist specializing in cybersecurity and retro tech. He broke out from his cubicle at Apple 6 years ago and now spends his days sipping Earl Grey tea & writing elegant copy.

Is it still worth using Proton VPN Free?

Mozambique VPN usage soars as internet restrictions continue

Another reason to avoid edge-lit 4K TVs: they may fail faster than others, according to this report