Virtual Private Network enables you to use internet to connect to machines while making sure that the connections are private. VPN is very convenient, but it is not necessary if you want remote clients to connect to you Linux or Unix server. Many people concerned about fast connections might then ask “how fast can a VPN go?” The simplest answer is that; a VPN can go as fast as other types of connection and can be faster if there is fast internet connection at both ends of the network. Actually VPN servers can be as fast as any other internet connections although there are several things that you should do to have faster VPN internet speeds.

If your VPN can allow you to select the authentication key size, then, you should select a smaller authentication key size to speed up your VPN connection. This is for open VPN and Tunnelblick software clients. Usually Open VPN creates a 128 bit encrypted data channel and a 256 bit encrypted control channel. Most VPN providers allows you to lower the control channel to 128 bit making the connection reducing the connection time significantly. Replacing your VPN’s host name with the IP address of the server, can also speed up your VPN connection speed. In addition, running your VPN directly on a faster CPU computer lowers the connection time and therefore making your VPN speed to be faster, than running the VPN on a router.

Maintaining a stable connection is also very important in determination of how fast a VPN can go. It is always advisable to choose a VPN server with the least amount of data packet loss and if possible 0 %. Your firewall setting should be done in a way that will allow your VPN to flow unrestrictedly. Although the firewall may not be restricting your VPN, it may be slowing the CPU speed when scrutinizing all network packets. It is also important to use a good internet provider to maintain a stable connection.

When trying to look for a fast server for your VPN, you need to know the country in which the server is located. The distance between your country and the server’s country matters a lot. The longer the distance, the slow the connection speed will be. This is due to the time a data packet travels back and forth from your VPN to the server. You can use the ping command to check the speed between your computer and the server. The ping command analyses how long information takes to reach the server. In a Windows operating system, click on run to go to the DOS command box and type the word ping followed by your VPN’s IP address and hit the enter button. This will show you how many milliseconds the data takes to reach your VPN server. By doing this, you can choose between several servers available to you and select the one with least connection time. You should also pick the server which is closest to you.