Having a VPN may be necessary in many cases. You may need a program of this type to access web pages that may be geographically blocked, improve your security when connecting to public networks or simply hide your IP when browsing. There are many options and one of the key factors is choosing a good server to connect the device to. We are going to talk to you about some tests that you can take into account.
The objective is to ensure that the connection is optimal and there are no interruptions. If you connect to a server that is not the right one, you can have quite visible performance problems. This will affect the usability of the connection and you may have difficulty browsing correctly, watching streaming content or downloading.
Test the VPN server
If you use a good VPN, you will normally have many servers that you will be able to connect to. They will be located in different countries, so choosing one or the other can be decisive. Generally, the ideal is to connect the device to a server that is in a nearby country. For example, if you are in Spain, it will be better to connect to a server in France or Germany than one located in Japan or the United States.
Take a speed test
The first and most basic thing is to do a speed test. This is what we always do when we suspect that the Internet connection is not working well. This gives us a very interesting clue as to whether there may be a fault with that server or, on the contrary, we are connected to one that works correctly.
Keep in mind that when using a VPN, your Internet speed will always decrease somewhat. Now, this should not mean a very large loss of speed and the connection being very limited. You can always test, connect to different servers, until you find the one that works best.
Also look at the latency
But not only Internet speed matters, but also ping or latency. Another test you can do when connecting to a VPN server is to see if it has too high latency. As in the previous case, it will always be superior to what you would get if you browsed directly to the Internet, without applications of this type, but ideally there should not be a huge difference.
Latency is important if you are going to play online or make a video call. If the ping was too high, everything would take longer to arrive and there would be problems establishing adequate communication or participating in a game in an online video game.
Actual use
Of course, you should also check the actual usage of the VPN. If you are going to use it to watch streaming content that may be restricted, a very good test is to watch that content and check if it works well or not. You may have to choose another server to connect to for it to work better.
You can do the same if you are going to use the cloud to download files, browse web pages, etc. Basically, it is testing how the connection responds to regular use that you are going to make with your device. It is important to use a guarantee program, such as CyberGhostVPN, surfshark either NordVPN.
In short, choosing well which server to connect the VPN to is important. You may have a wide range of options, so it’s a good idea to run some basic tests and see if everything works well. Analyzing speed, latency or real use will be key.