You join a lobby.
You lost count of how much you’ve played.
You switch to your best weapon. You move out.
You reach the enemy, and everything slows to a halt.
You mash buttons. But your character doesn’t respond.
You fall from a single headshot.
A VPN Does More Than Just Protect You
Lagging is one of the most annoying parts of playing an online game. It doesn’t mean much when you’re watching a movie, but losing a split second in an online game can mean the difference between winning and losing. A VPN gives you security and total protection. But it also improves your gaming experience.
How?
Think of how a VPN works. It works by taking your internet connection and pushing it through an encryption tunnel. This tunnel is protected and connects to far-away servers anywhere in the world. VPNs are virtual private networks that connect computers to form a bubble of sorts. Everything within this bubble is encrypted. This bubble protects your privacy. It hides your activity from your internet service provider(ISP). This means you can play games that your government prohibits you from playing. You can visit websites that your government bans you from accessing. You protect your privacy and keep your user data safe.
Nearly every website you know tracks your online activity with the help of cookies. They spy on nearly everything you do. By using the bubble of a VPN, you hide your identity and make it impossible for people to track you. And this has the interesting side effect of giving you an advantage over other gamers.
VPNs Prevent Bandwidth Throttling
The University of Massachusetts completed a study and found that numerous ISPs engage in bandwidth throttling. Your internet lines are shared by everyone in your neighborhood. Sometimes there’s heavy internet traffic like in the evening. Sometimes there’s less internet traffic like when people are driving to work. All this means that your connection speeds change depending on the time of day, depending on the number of people online. And some ISPs slow down specific data, like game data, for other reasons.
You could be taking cover in a game, seconds away from winning, only for your ISP to start throttling your internet because it’s peak hours. This might make your character rubber-band and teleport in-game because of lag. All gamers know how this can ruin your game. VPNs fight bandwidth throttling by encrypting your traffic. They make it so your ISP can’t find out if you’re playing a game or checking your email instead. A secure VPN connection hides your activities from everyone, including your ISP.
VPNs Improve Your Response Time
All gamers know how important ping is. The higher your ping, the slower your computer communicates with the game server. The lower your ping, the faster your computer communicates with the game server.
A VPN connects you to high-quality remote servers all over the world. This means the amount of time it takes the game server to communicate with your computer is reduced. So every action you take in-game is faster and more responsive. This gives you an advantage over gamers with bad internet connections and lower-end gaming equipment. The less you lag, the more you win, and the more fun you have.
VPNs Protect Your Privacy
It doesn’t matter if you’re playing on a PC, a smartphone, a gaming console, or on a smart fridge. Everything with an internet connection is vulnerable to attacks. Someone that knows your IP address can launch a DDoS attack on your computer, making it impossible to play online. The public WiFi connection you use might be unsafe. It’s public, so anyone can intercept your internet traffic and track what you’re doing at any time.
A VPN protects your identity with an encryption tunnel, hiding your real IP address. You can safely use a public WiFi connection without worrying about hackers. Playing online is fun, and more people turn to online gaming year after year. But the popularity of online games means that you need to protect yourself from hackers and spyware. A VPN does all that, and more.