Does Private Internet Access affect internet speed?

[Zerxal]

I want a VPN, but I like my fast internet speed. For the people who use PIA, have you had any problems with it slowing down your internet or affecting it in any way?

[Mira Yurizaki]

I don't use PIA, but the general caveat when using a VPN is yes, it can affect your internet speed. However it depends on where and what you're connecting to. For example, staying within your country will likely lower performance, but connecting to a VPN server in another part of the world can possibly improve performance when accessing content located there than if you did it without the VPN.

[Enderman]

All VPNs will decrease speed by some amount. How much depends on a lot of things.

It could be 0.1Mbps or 100Mpbs lower.

[Br3tt96]

Speeds are very quick on PIA for me, and ping is actually surprisingly good. Also I'm connecting to serves in my state, and cross continents ping get above 150, but download speeds are generally a few mbps off

[asus killer]

i think it depends. If you have a server next to you and a website on the other side of the world, if the VPN has a better connection than yours you will probably get better speeds. If you are connecting to someone next door in the same ISP you are adding a step to the connection and it will end up probably slower

[Alex Atkin UK]

Its always a little bit slower with a little more latency (I find 10-15ms on AirVPN, PIA might be better though) as you are adding overhead and reducing the size of the MTU due to using a VPN.

 

Another factor is your ISP might be more prone to dropping or slowing down UDP traffic than TCP.  Which is why even though TCP typically is even slower on a good connection, its kept as an option in case your ISP really sucks at UDP.

 

How much will it slow down?  This is asked all over the Internet and there seems to be no real guideline other than to try it yourself and see.

[DeLorian]

A VPN connection speed depends on a vast number of variables, such as your ISP, local network settings, device, location, VPN server load, the distance between both peers and so on. The general gist is that you choose a server that is nearest to your location if you want the lowest latency and the best speed. Don't know about PIA, but Nord has this server choosing tool, which chooses the best one for you depending on the server load and location I think. Maybe PIA has something similar?

[Mornincupofhate]

You'll notice a gain of about +10ms, but that's about it.

[Jerped]

Tested home connection vs PIA. I'm in Quebec, Canada connecting to a PIA server in Washington DC.

With VPN:

 

without VPN and using same server for speedtest:

 

I am paying for 150down, 50up but I receive 150/150 normally, with some fluctuation ^^. I also want to add that the server picked by Speedtest was chosen automatically during the VPN test and it's 1000km away from my home.

 

For a VPN connection, not that bad    I leave it on all the time and completely forget about it, even while gaming.