VPN, Bandwidth, Port Forwarding, Region Locking

[rodion.zissou]

I have recently signed up with a VPN and I have a few questions about dialing everything in. First off, I was expecting to take a hit in my DL/UL speeds. Surprisingly though, when using speed test, I got double the DL speed when connected to my VPN's server. I did a few tests on three configurations and was able to get pretty consistent results for each one. The results are below.

No VPN

VPN

VPN running in a virtual machine

So, my questions are

1. Is my speed really increasing by using the VPN? Is this a poor way to gather real world speeds?
2. Why would my speed be slower within the virtual machine?

 

[Bird222]

I'm not sure what is going on but I can pretty much guarantee using a VPN is not increasing your speed.

 

[Wall Street]

I believe that the second test is only testing:

Speedtest.net --> VPN provider

The other tests are testing:

Speedtest.net --> VPN provider --> Your PC

 

[rodion.zissou]

Why would the second test only test bandwidth to VPN's server? Also, could this indicate the methods my ISP uses to limit bandwidth to it's customers? I mean, I pay for a 150mb connection, so might they just throttle me when they can see my IP, therefore when I am anonymous, they cannot throttle me?

 

[Wall Street]

Why would the second test only test bandwidth to VPN's server? Also, could this indicate the methods my ISP uses to limit bandwidth to it's customers? I mean, I pay for a 150mb connection, so might they just throttle me when they can see my IP, therefore when I am anonymous, they cannot throttle me?

If you pay for a 150 mbps connection then it is very unlikely that you ISP would allow 400+ mbps to pass through the to your house. Speedtest.net waits for an tcp connection to load that page, then it dumps as much bandwidth as possible on the IP address of that connection. In the case of the second test, the connection is from your VPN's IP address, so it is possible that the test is limited by the datarate from your VPN to your house. It is certainly possible for your VPN to receive all of those packets and send ack packets back to speedtest without forwarding them on to your PC (especially since the packets are dropped and have no impact on the page itself).

 

[claprhym3]

When I had trouble with my ISP's speed, someone suggested to use VPN so that I could be directed to another server or something like that. It works so I'm thinking that it is true. After that I've been a loyal VPN customer and bought a subscription to VPNWise's smart DNS as I haven't experienced slow connections after that.

 

[blockshope]

Its a good think to read about this. I was actually looking for answer about VPN increasing internet speed. Currently, I have slow internet connection and someone told me to use VPN. I read somewhere that they suggest to use proxy. Which one is better to use? Proxy or VPN?
@claprhym3 will try to install your recommendation, I also read somewhere that ZenVPN is also great in increasing connection any other recommendation?

 

[claprhym3]

Its a good think to read about this. I was actually looking for answer about VPN increasing internet speed. Currently, I have slow internet connection and someone told me to use VPN. I read somewhere that they suggest to use proxy. Which one is better to use? Proxy or VPN?
@claprhym3 will try to install your recommendation, I also read somewhere that ZenVPN is also great in increasing connection any other recommendation?

I prefer using VPN than proxy, they said protection/security is much better. Haven't heard about ZenVPN yet, it was ZenMate that I've read about. Upon doing a search I found a review about zenvpn that might be of help http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2454646,00.asp

 

[blockshope]

Thanks so much for the link it is really helpful. Anyway, I am curious about SMART DNS what is it for?