Hi, guys. Utterly clueless newbie, here. 
I've decided to throw myself on your mercy!
I've recently switched broadband provider, from BT (FTTC broadband) to Virgin Media (cable broadband), because I was looking for more speed. (I'm in the UK, there is no pure-fibre broadband provider in my area).
With BT my line speed used to max out at around 75Mb/s; with a VPN connection active, I didn't see much slowdown - could easily hit 60 or even 70Mb/s.
With Virgin, the raw download speed (measured at www.speedtest.net) is much higher - in the 350-400Mb/s range most of the time, albeit with slightly higher ping times. But I've been having all kinds of problems with VPN connections. For example:
Initial research suggested that the so-called Superhub 3.0 router that Virgin Media supply you with has a number of problems in all kinds of situations, and that things may run smoother if you put it into "modem mode" - meaning, it functions purely as a cable modem, and you use your own router. Based on no knowledge and rather sketchy research, I got myself an Asus RT-AC86U - hopefully not too bad a choice! Again based on rather sketchy research, I've flashed it with the latest version of Asuswrt-Merlin.
Sadly, it doesn't seem to be making much difference - VPN performance is relatively unchanged, and it doesn't seem to make much odds whether I'm using a VPN connection on my PC, or connecting directly with the router itself.
My normal domestic VPN supplier is Trust.Zone, but I did try briefly signing up with a few others - PureVPN, IPVanish, and ExpressVPN; performance remained unimpressive with all of them. (With one or two exceptions: PureVPN's web browser extension was much faster, but I'm fairly sure that's because it's actually unencrypted; similarly, an L2TP from the router was very fast, but again I think that's L2TP without IPSEC, meaning it's unencrypted).
So, sorry for the wall of text(!) but I'd appreciate some advice on any or all of the following:
EDIT: I have, incidentally, found this thread: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/h...and-other-vpn-providers-380-69_2-03-29.30851/ but it's going to take me quite a while to figure out how much of it is of general relevance and how much of it is specific to one particular VPN provider.
I've decided to throw myself on your mercy! I've recently switched broadband provider, from BT (FTTC broadband) to Virgin Media (cable broadband), because I was looking for more speed. (I'm in the UK, there is no pure-fibre broadband provider in my area).
With BT my line speed used to max out at around 75Mb/s; with a VPN connection active, I didn't see much slowdown - could easily hit 60 or even 70Mb/s.
With Virgin, the raw download speed (measured at www.speedtest.net) is much higher - in the 350-400Mb/s range most of the time, albeit with slightly higher ping times. But I've been having all kinds of problems with VPN connections. For example:
- When connecting to my office for work, the SonicWall GlobalVPN client now refuses to connect at all. (It worked fine with BT).
- The backup work VPN, which uses an old version of OpenVPN, connects okay with TCP, but won't connect at all using UDP.
- PPTP connections to a domestic VPN provider seem to be limited to around 10-15Mb/s.
- Open VPN UDP connections to domestic VPN run significantly slower than OpenVPN TCP connections - sometimes the speed drops by as much as two thirds with UDP. (With BT, UDP was faster).
- In general, domestic VPN speeds to be dramatically much lower than the line speed - I'm lucky if I get 100Mb/s most of the time.
- I sometimes get much slower performance with bittorrent downloads than the general line speed would suggest. With no VPN, I can download a Ubuntu installation via bittorrent at 360Mb/s or even more; with VPN up it can drop to as little 12Mb/s. This varies a lot depending on the connection protocol - OpenVPN is much the same speed for bittorrent as it is in general use, but with some other protocols it varies wildly.
Initial research suggested that the so-called Superhub 3.0 router that Virgin Media supply you with has a number of problems in all kinds of situations, and that things may run smoother if you put it into "modem mode" - meaning, it functions purely as a cable modem, and you use your own router. Based on no knowledge and rather sketchy research, I got myself an Asus RT-AC86U - hopefully not too bad a choice! Again based on rather sketchy research, I've flashed it with the latest version of Asuswrt-Merlin.
Sadly, it doesn't seem to be making much difference - VPN performance is relatively unchanged, and it doesn't seem to make much odds whether I'm using a VPN connection on my PC, or connecting directly with the router itself.
My normal domestic VPN supplier is Trust.Zone, but I did try briefly signing up with a few others - PureVPN, IPVanish, and ExpressVPN; performance remained unimpressive with all of them. (With one or two exceptions: PureVPN's web browser extension was much faster, but I'm fairly sure that's because it's actually unencrypted; similarly, an L2TP from the router was very fast, but again I think that's L2TP without IPSEC, meaning it's unencrypted).
So, sorry for the wall of text(!) but I'd appreciate some advice on any or all of the following:
- Getting VPN connections to work faster (or even just work at all!) with Virgin Media broadband.
- Suggestions for a different VPN provider whose performance might be better.
- Any tips on configuring VPN connections on my PC.
- Advice on setting up an Asus RT-AC86U router (plus PC and cable modem) for better VPN performance.
EDIT: I have, incidentally, found this thread: https://www.snbforums.com/threads/h...and-other-vpn-providers-380-69_2-03-29.30851/ but it's going to take me quite a while to figure out how much of it is of general relevance and how much of it is specific to one particular VPN provider.
