If your internet connection is slow and balky, try this

[dixiegrrrrl]

We have chronic connection problems
but we also have a VPN now

and I finally figured out I can connect to VPN which connects me to another part of the country, or world even
and my balky internet is working just fine today.

Worth every penny of my $6.00 a month vpn

[manicraven]

1. Yes, I've been using a VPN for a few years now. The only problem I have is that

if I have it on and connect to my bank, the bank won't let me log in and also PayPal will suspend my account until proving that it's me. Otherwise, it works well.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Depending where I connect to, my email resists it.

given the tradeoffs, I can handle that ok.

[Faslow]

3. Does VPN increase your browsing speed?

I’ve been interested in VPN services and all related issues for about a year, so this post baffled me. As far as I’m concerned, usage of VPNs have a huge influence on internet connection speed by reducing and even intercepting it. There are decent VPN providers that offer premium packages for their customers with maximum possible speeds. But even they violate the speed results. Anyway, I would be pleased to know more about your VPN service.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. VPN usually slows internet speeds

but not enough to bother me when browsing.
Downloading on our internet service is balky at any time, we have dsl on old wires, and our provider will not make improvements.
Worse yet, at times we cannot even get a decent connection to the internet, but strangely enough, we CAN via vpn to another city across teh country...go figure.

We use PIA vpn service, they do have an advanced tier, we just use the basic cause we don't stream movies.

Torrent Freak lists best VPNs a couple times a year, here is the 2016 rankings...the first happens to be the one we use.
https://torrentfreak.com/vpn-anonymous-review-160220/

[Egnever]

5. I suspect that is a fluke

A VPN should not improve your internet connection as it adds to the route and depends highly on the amount of traffic going through the hop that the VPN is tied to.

The internet does not care where your traffic originates from as far as it affecting speed. Electrons/light move at the same speed no matter where they originate. All a vpn does in that equation is make the trip longer and potentially adds a bottleneck.