Technologies

VPN Slowing You Down? Try These Steps to Speed Things Up

A VPN can cut your internet speed in half, which can be a real buzzkill if you’re gaming or streaming. Here’s how to speed things up.

Let’s face it: Using a virtual private network will slow down your internet — often by 50% or more.

It’s the nature of how VPNs work, and there’s really no way around it. However, there are a few things you can try to get the fastest possible speeds out of your VPN connection.

VPNs add a layer of encryption to your internet connection while routing your traffic through a secure server in a location of your choosing. This process is the main reason behind the speed loss. It takes time to encrypt and decrypt your traffic and for your data to make the round trip to the VPN server and back to your device.

Other factors can also have a hand in slowing your connection speeds, such as the VPN protocol you’re using or how many other people are using the same VPN server you’re connecting through.

The speed hit may be virtually imperceptible for normal internet use when you use a fast VPN, but you’ll want all the speeds you can get for data-heavy activities like gaming, streaming or video conferencing. A delay of even a few milliseconds can mean the difference between glory and failure in your online game. And slow VPN speeds can result in a ruined video streaming experience, spoiled by constant buffering and a heaping dose of pixelation. And if you’re using a VPN while on a Zoom call, you’ll want to do whatever you can to maximize your VPN speeds to ensure the call goes smoothly and doesn’t drop out.

If your VPN isn’t as fast as you need it to be, here’s what you can do to speed up your connection.

Read more: The Best VPNs, Tested and Rated

7 ways to improve your VPN speeds

Connect to a server closer to your physical location

Generally speaking, the closer the VPN server is to your physical location, the faster your connection speeds should be. Your traffic will have a shorter physical distance to cover when it’s routed through a VPN server that’s close by rather than one that’s halfway across the world. If you’re in Boston, your VPN connection should be a lot faster if you connect to a VPN server in New York City or Montreal than one in Sydney or Tokyo, for example.

This won’t always be practical if, say, you want to stream content from a specific country or access a gaming server from a particular location. But when you need a faster connection, try connecting to a few different VPN servers close to where you’re physically located and see which ones yield the fastest speeds. Some VPNs will have a speed test feature built into their apps, but you can always use a speed testing website like Ookla Speedtest to check the speed of your connection.

If you’re looking for a VPN with tons of server locations, try ExpressVPN, which offers servers in 160 locations across 94 countries — so you’re bound to find a few relatively close to where you are.

Connect to a server that isn’t overloaded

When too many people are using a single VPN server, the server can get overloaded and your connection speed can take a hit. Some VPN providers display the current server load on their servers either in the app itself or on the website. If you choose one with a lighter load, you’ll generally achieve faster speeds. If your VPN provider doesn’t display the current load on its servers, try connecting to a few different ones to see which gets you the fastest speeds. Sometimes, it just takes a little trial and error.

Your VPN will lower the speed of your connection, but you can try to minimize that hit.

Sarah Tew/CNET

Try connecting via a different VPN protocol

A VPN protocol is a set of instructions between the VPN app on your device and the VPN server that determines how the secure connection is established. There are various VPN protocols and most providers give you the ability to choose between a few different options. Different protocols have different advantages and disadvantages in terms of speed and security, so if you connect via one VPN protocol rather than another, you can potentially boost the speed of your VPN.

Today, the gold standard VPN protocol is OpenVPN. It is the most battle-tested protocol, and it offers a nice combination of speed, stability and security — which is why many VPNs use OpenVPN as their default protocol. More and more VPN providers are now also offering newer VPN protocols like IKEv2 and WireGuard that promise faster speeds alongside excellent security. And some have even developed proprietary VPN protocols like ExpressVPN’s Lightway and NordVPN’s NordLynx that claim to offer the best of both worlds.

Switching to one of these other protocols, if offered by your VPN provider, can yield you faster connection speeds through your VPN. Just be aware that — though their security appears to be solid — these protocols haven’t been as thoroughly tested in the wild as OpenVPN, so they shouldn’t be your first choice for critical VPN use.

If you prefer to use OpenVPN exclusively, use UDP rather than TCP to get the best speeds. While TCP is typically the more stable option, it tends to be slower than UDP because it needs to send data packets in the right order and will wait for confirmation of receipt from the recipient prior to sending the next packet. UDP isn’t concerned about the order in which it sends data packets or getting any acknowledgment that they were received, so it tends to be much faster and more efficient, but less stable.

Most VPN apps allow you to change the protocol you connect through in their settings section, so try playing around with the protocol settings to see which ones get you the fastest speeds.

Enable split tunneling if available

If your VPN provider offers a split-tunneling feature, then try enabling it to see if you can boost your VPN speeds. Split tunneling allows you to send only the traffic you want through your VPN connection, while sending the rest unencrypted through your regular internet connection.

For example, if you’re using your VPN for streaming, you can allocate just your streaming traffic to go through the VPN, which won’t slow down your online gaming. This can help optimize your VPN speeds for certain activities, because all the excess traffic you don’t need running through your VPN won’t burden your bandwidth.

Use a wired connection

Using a wired connection will typically be faster than using your Wi-Fi. Chances are you’ve got several devices connected to your home Wi-Fi network all at the same time — devices that are all sharing and competing for resources on the same wireless channel. This can result in an unstable internet connection and, therefore, slower speeds. If you have the proper equipment, try establishing a wired connection by hooking your computer up directly to your router via ethernet cable and then connect to your VPN.

Close unnecessary apps running in the background

If you have apps running in the background that you’re not using, they could be taking up resources on your machine and slowing your connection. Take a minute to check if anything’s running in the background that you’re not using and close those processes. By clearing up potential bottlenecks like this, you might notice a faster connection.

Restart your router and other devices

When was the last time you restarted your devices? Just like anything else, tech like your computer and router occasionally need a little R&R. When you reboot your computer, you’ll give it a needed refresh, free up some RAM and get it working optimally. So, as cliche as it sounds, try turning it off and back on again, then see how your VPN speeds improve as a result.

Looking for more VPN info? Check out our other coverage:

Technologies

Fitbit Launches Luffu, AI-Powered Health Tracking for the Whole Family

Soon, you may be able to access every family member’s health data in one place.

If you’ve ever wanted a way to keep all of your family’s health records in place, Fitbit may have come up with a solution. Fitbit, well-known for its fitness wearables, announced the launch of its own health care system on Wednesday.

Luffu, which translates to the Old English word for «love,» uses AI to create what it calls an «intelligent family care system.» The platform allows family members to share all their health information through an app.

It’s unclear when Luffu will be officially available, but you can sign up for the waitlist to get access to the limited public beta. Pricing or other details have not been announced.

Luffu will allow families to keep track of everyone’s doctor’s appointments, test results, vaccine records, medications, symptoms, diet and more. The platform uses AI to learn your family’s health history and patterns, and to alert you to any changes that should be addressed, such as missed medications or abnormal vitals. The AI function organizes the data submitted into the system. The app will also connect to third-party apps and wearables, such as the Fitbit.

Luffu is meant to lighten the mental load of family care by organizing all this health data in one place, its co-founder said.

«I was caring for my parents from across the country, trying to piece together my mom’s health care across various portals and providers, with a language barrier that made it hard to get a complete, timely context from her about doctor visits,» said Luffu co-founder James Park.

Luffu will include alerts and a space to log health and medication information via voice, text, photos, and other health portals and devices. The key medical information can be shared across the platform with spouses, caregivers and parents.

A representative for Fitbit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Technologies

These New AI Transcription Models Are Built for Speed and Privacy

Mistral AI’s new Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 and Voxtral Realtime are intended to run on your device, meaning your conversations never find their way to a data center.

Sometimes you want to transcribe something, but don’t want it to be hanging out on the internet for any hacker to see. Maybe it’s a conversation with your doctor or lawyer. Maybe you’re a journalist, and it’s a sensitive interview. Privacy and control are important.

That desire for privacy is one reason the French developer Mistral AI built its latest transcription models to be small enough to run on devices. They can run on your phone, on your laptop or in the cloud.

Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2, one of the new models announced Wednesday, is «super, super small,» Pierre Stock, Mistral’s vice president of science operations, told me. Another new model, Voxtral Realtime, can do the same thing but live, like closed captioning.

Privacy is not the only reason the company wanted to build small open-source models. By running right on the device you’re using, these models can work faster. No more waiting on files to find their way through the internet to a data center and back.

«What you want is the transcription to happen super, super close to you,» Stock said. «And the closest we can find to you is any edge device, so a laptop, a phone, a wearable like a smartwatch, for instance.»

The low latency (read: high speed) is especially important for real-time transcription. The Voxtral Realtime model can generate with a latency of less than 200 milliseconds, Stock said. It can transcribe a speaker’s words about as quickly as you can read them. No more waiting two or three seconds for the closed captioning to catch up.

The Voxtral Realtime model is available through Mistral’s API and on Hugging Face, along with a demo where you can try it out.

In some brief testing, I found it generated fairly quickly (although not as fast as you’d expect if it were on device) and managed to capture what I said accurately in English with a little bit of Spanish mixed in. It’s capable of handling 13 languages right now, according to Mistral.

Voxtral Mini Transcribe 2 is also available through the company’s API, or you can play around with it in Mistral’s AI Studio. I used the model to transcribe my interview with Stock.

I found it to be quick and pretty reliable, although it struggled with proper names like Mistral AI (which it called Mr. Lay Eye) and Voxtral (VoxTroll). Yes, the AI model got its own name wrong. But Stock said users can customize the model to understand certain words, names and jargon better if they’re using it for specific tasks.

The challenge of building small, fast AI models is that they also have to be accurate, Stock said. The company touted the models’ performance on benchmarks showing improved error rates compared to competitors.

«It’s not enough to say, OK, I’ll make a small model,» Stock said. «What you need is a small model that has the same quality as larger models, right?»

Technologies

Don’t Miss Out on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $25 Per Month

With this StackSocial offer, you’re getting access to hundreds of games for either $25 for one month or $74 for three months.

Right now at StackSocial, you can get a three-month membership for just $74, which brings each month to $25. Normally $30 per month, you can also opt for a single-month plan for $25. I’ve been following Xbox Game Pass pricing for a while, so this is a great deal. Just keep in mind, once you get your download code via email, the purchase cannot be changed or returned.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate lets you access games not only on your console but also on a PC or mobile device. Basically, you can play what you want, when you want, where you want. Game Pass adds new games all the time, with not only older titles making their way to the service but also brand-new Xbox games, including releases from Microsoft’s own studios on the day of release.

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Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is a brilliant way to save cash while playing fantastic games, including Black Ops 6, Halo: Infinite, Hellblade 2, Starfield and tons more. While the lineup changes each month, more than 500 games are available to play. It’s the closest thing to a Netflix for games.

Please note that Microsoft allows prepayment for up to 36 months of access, so 12 is the maximum number of subscriptions you should purchase. You can check out our full roundup of all the best Xbox deals for more savings on games and accessories.

Why this deal matters

The last time we saw the Game Pass subscription discounted was around the holiday season. Right now, you can get access to hundreds of games for essentially the price of one. Whether you choose the one- or three-month option, the price is the same at $25 per month. Since most games aren’t usually priced below $25, this is a steal.