
Using a VPN, therefore, has an impact on your internet speed, but how much of an impact depends on factors such as how far away you are from the VPN server, how busy the VPN server is, how far the VPN server is from the website target or other destination, and which VPN protocol you use. It also means that your data has to travel an extra distance to the VPN server, which can cause delays (as described in the article mentioned above).

Using a VPN means your data is encrypted and decrypted at both the client and server end, which takes processing power.

If you would like to learn more in depth about internet speed and the various factors that can slow you down or speed you up, please see our article on latency, bandwidth, and throughput. We created this article to help demystify these factors and help you get the best VPN speeds while using Proton VPN. Several factors affect VPN speeds, including which servers you select and how many other people are using your VPN service.
