Here’s a quick question: Who’s faster? Superman or Flash?
No offense to any DC fan, but my VPN is definitely faster than both! Do you want to know how fast your VPN is? Conduct a quick VPN speed test to find out!
Recent years saw a massive increase in demand for VPN services. Of course, this also resulted in an increase in supply, and we saw hundreds of VPNs flooding the market. The most interesting thing is each one of them claims to be the fastest. However, speed is not usually the primary consideration when purchasing a VPN service, but it does affect our online activities.
There’s a common perception that VPNs slow down internet speed, as they redirect your traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a server located in a different region. However, the best Canada VPN providers maintain a negligible amount of connection drop, allowing you to enjoy consistent and fast speeds. But how to find such VPNs?
Simple! Just conduct a VPN speed test. This guide explains how to test your VPN speed, parameters to look for in a speed test, and the tips for speeding up your VPN.
How to Test Your VPN Speed?
There are several tools and services available online that facilitate VPN speed testing. For an intuitive experience, try running your VPN through the following VPN test speed websites:
- SpeedTest.net (developed by Ookla)
- Fast.com (designed by Netflix)
- OpenSpeedTest.com
Choose one testing tool and proceed with the following steps:
- Check your base internet connection by turning off a VPN. It helps compare the speed rates when measuring the VPN speed. Remember: VPN performance correlates to your internet speed. If your regular internet connection is slow, don’t expect your VPN to perform any better.
- Visit any speed test website. I am using Speedtest.net to check my internet connection.
- Check download speed, upload speed, and ping rate. Here’s what the results were of my regular internet connection.
- Keep your internet connection results aside by taking a screenshot. Open your VPN app (we’re using ExpressVPN here).
- Connect to your preferred server and head back to speedtest.net to test it.
6. Hit the ‘Go‘ button and run the speed test. Here’s what my results were when I tested ExpressVPN:
7. Compare the speed test results and check if there isn’t any significant drop in speed. ExpressVPN showed pretty great results against my internet connection.
Why Do I need to test My VPN connection Speed?
The VPN speed test is crucial for deciding the right VPN for your online needs. Moreover, a VPN speed influences our online activities while connected to the VPN.
When you click on that little ‘connect‘ button on your VPN, our entire web traffic goes through an encrypted tunnel. Whether you’re scavenging multiple websites for the perfect Marvel emoji or drooling over ASMR videos on YouTube, all of your online activities pass through that external VPN server. And because of the intervention of the middle man (read: server), your internet speed inevitably slows down.
Speed test is particularly important to determine the best streaming VPN service since nobody wants those frustrating lags and buffers during streaming. Fortunately, there exist a few VPNs that make your connection faster regardless of the intermediary server. But finding them is as hard as locating a needle in a haystack.
Besides, the market is already flooded with VPN providers that hyperbolize their speed abilities but perform otherwise.
Therefore, it’s important to know how to test your VPN speed so you can make the decision you don’t regret!
What to look for when testing VPN speed? – Analyzing the results
There are several parameters you need to consider when testing VPN speed:
Download Speed
The download speed is the speed at which data travels from the internet to a device. Technically speaking, it measures the rate of data transfer in megabits per second (Mbps). The higher the download speed, the better for your connection.
Upload Speed
The Upload Speed is the speed at which you send data and requests to the internet. Low upload speed will be particularly challenging for streaming to other devices – such as during social media live streaming or a video call.
You must require at least 3 Mbps for casual scrolling and above 10 Mbps for streaming in HD or ultra-HD video quality. A higher upload speed is important for choosing the best VPN for torrenting.
Latency
Also known as “lag” or “ping rate,” latency reflects the overall speed of your VPN. The lower latency your VPN shows, the faster your internet gets. This basically represents the time taken for a device to send a data packet to serve and revive a response.
For example, If your VPN speed test shows ping rates above 90 pings, this means it took about 80 milliseconds for a data packet to travel back and forth from your device. Ping rate plays a role in deciding the top Best VPN for gaming.
Therefore, when you test your VPN speed, make sure to pay attention to all of these factors. However, the one factor you should pay more attention to than the other aspects is the download speed. This one factor significantly influences your connecting during streaming, gaming, downloading, and browsing.
What Affects VPN Speed?
Several factors affect VPN speed. Some are related to your regular connection, such as router speed, while other factors like server locations, routing, server load, server speed are dependent on your chosen VPN provider. The type of device you’re using and the proximity of server location also affect your VPN speed.
Here, we have listed down all the possible factors that can influence your VPN speed:
1. Your regular connection speed:
Regardless of how fast a VPN service is, the biggest hurdle affecting its speed is your regular internet connection. If your home router speed is 9Mbps, you will not get more than 50 Mbps speeds with your VPN connection. Take a quick speed test to see how fast is your internet connection.
2. Level of encryption:
the stronger the encryption, the slower the speed. Encryption adds extra data, which consumes some of the bandwidth that is affecting your VPN speed. However, some VPNs manage to balance these two and ensure the fastest speed with strong encryption levels.
3. Location of server:
the farther the VPN server is, the slower your connection gets. Basically, a distant VPN server adds several devices, miles and distances between you and the server; more distance = slower speed. That’s why it’s recommended to choose a VPN with the largest server bank so you can find one close to your home. ExpressVPN has 3000+ servers in 90+ countries.
4. Overcrowded servers and bandwidth limit:
People who use a free VPN service are most likely to have their speed affected by this factor. Free services often limit the bandwidth use; they also have fewer servers to begin with.
Fewer server options mean more people are probably using the same server, resulting in overcrowdedness and poor speed. For example, if 100 people are connected to a 100 Mbps server, each individual will get not more than 10 Mbps of speed.
5. Network configuration:
Most of our VPN speed tests showed better results when using a LAN cable as a base connection. Although many people prefer to use their Wi-Fi, the LAN connection is much faster than your router and can show up a difference of up to 100%.
6. Protocols:
The kind of encryption protocols your VPN uses also affects your VPN speed. Some protocols are designed for better security, while others are for faster connection. For example, OpenVPN (TCP) is almost always slower than UDP (OpenVPN) but better at security. Therefore, it’s recommended to opt for a VPN that uses the mixer of both.
How to make my VPN faster?
Here’s what you can do to speed up your VPN:
- Choose servers that are closer to your location.
- Select servers that are not crowded.
- Choose a better VPN service. We strongly recommend ExpressVPN.
- Switch to OpenVPN UDP protocol, or WireGuard if available.
- Choose a lower encryption level (it’s not recommended, though. if security doesn’t matter to you, you can go for this tip).
- Connect to LAN and improve your regular internet connection.
The Fastest VPNs for Canada
Here, we have compared the speed rates between the top 5 VPN providers in the industry:
| Rank | VPN Provider | Average Speed |
| 1st | ExpressVPN | 87.02 |
| 2nd | NordVPN | 84.09 |
| 3rd | Surfshark | 79.36 |
| 4th | CyberGhost | 72.03 |
| 5th | IPVanish | 65.59 |
FAQs
Does a VPN slow your internet speed?
Does higher encryption result in lower VPN speed?
Can VPN increase your Internet speed?
How much does a VPN reduce speed?
Conclusion
so, that’s a wrap on our VPN Speed Test guide. Here’s a quick recap: A VPN speed test determines how fast your VPN is and how likely you will suffer connection drops, lags or buffers during browsing, torrenting, gaming, and streaming while connected to a VPN.
Although privacy and security are normally the main concerns when purchasing a VPN, fast speed is equally crucial. After all, we do not spend extra money to get high-speed internet packages only to find that the VPN pulls it down drastically.
Our tests showed ExpressVPN as the fastest VPN provider among the rest of the services, delivering an average speed rate of 87.02 on a 100 Mbps connection. Pretty fast, right? Let us know your VPN test results in the comment section below.