Salutations geeks,

Recently I have been wondering around the forums and I found a couple of posts whereby people have used a "VPN" to increase their internet speed. My house in the mountains has a "2" Mb/s dsl subscription with IDM but with two kids, my wife, and myself on the same connection, it is a complete disaster.

I was wondering if somebody can explain/assist me in utilizing a "VPN" by answering these questions:

1) In simplistic terms, what is a VPN?
2) Can anyone gain access to a VPN?
3) How can I download a VPN?
4) Is it illegal or unethical (although most ISP's in Lebanon are unethical with their false promises/advertising)?

Thank you very much,
Jad
A VPN will only increase your speed in a particular scenario. Some low quality, cheap ISPs will slow down your downloads and some other things so that your browsing remains fast. VPN can allow you to "cheat" around these rules. Do not expect a miracle, and my advice is try to get a better connection.
This is not the original intended use of VPNs. Virtual Private Networks are a way to create private networks that use the internet to communicate.
jad594 wrote 4) Is it illegal or unethical (although most ISP's in Lebanon are unethical with their false promises/advertising)?
I don't care, it's an open protocol and if I need it then I will use it.
It may help bypass ISP unfair QoS, and it is completely legal.
But there is no guarantee it will help you to increase speed, i suggest to test several different vpn protocols (pptp, sstp, openvpn) and to find best results for you.
Researching this subject is very lengthy topic, just be aware, that all third party services may spy on your traffic and in some cases might steal your credentials or data (it depends on their setup).
jad594 wroteSalutations geeks,

Recently I have been wondering around the forums and I found a couple of posts whereby people have used a "VPN" to increase their internet speed. My house in the mountains has a "2" Mb/s dsl subscription with IDM but with two kids, my wife, and myself on the same connection, it is a complete disaster.

I was wondering if somebody can explain/assist me in utilizing a "VPN" by answering these questions:

1) In simplistic terms, what is a VPN?
2) Can anyone gain access to a VPN?
3) How can I download a VPN?
4) Is it illegal or unethical (although most ISP's in Lebanon are unethical with their false promises/advertising)?

Thank you very much,
Jad
A VPN is a virtual private network.
In plain terms, instead of You -> Your ISP -> Google.com, it will be You -> Your ISP -> VPN -> Google.com.
This only helps if your ISP is throttling Google.com in this case.
If your ISP is throttling torrents for example, this bypasses the throttling.
Otherwise there is no speed benefit. You won't get higher than your 2Mbit/second.
hussam wrote
jad594 wroteSalutations geeks,

Recently I have been wondering around the forums and I found a couple of posts whereby people have used a "VPN" to increase their internet speed. My house in the mountains has a "2" Mb/s dsl subscription with IDM but with two kids, my wife, and myself on the same connection, it is a complete disaster.

I was wondering if somebody can explain/assist me in utilizing a "VPN" by answering these questions:

1) In simplistic terms, what is a VPN?
2) Can anyone gain access to a VPN?
3) How can I download a VPN?
4) Is it illegal or unethical (although most ISP's in Lebanon are unethical with their false promises/advertising)?

Thank you very much,
Jad
A VPN is a virtual private network.
In plain terms, instead of You -> Your ISP -> Google.com, it will be You -> Your ISP -> VPN -> Google.com.
This only helps if your ISP is throttling Google.com in this case.
If your ISP is throttling torrents for example, this bypasses the throttling.
Otherwise there is no speed benefit. You won't get higher than your 2Mbit/second.
You => VPN => Your ISP => Google.com
Georges00 wrote You => VPN => Your ISP => Google.com
Not really.
In this context the packet has to go through the ISP first, then to a server that provides access to your VPN.
Georges00 wrote You => VPN => Your ISP => Google.com
No, that's not possible. The VPN is a remote server. You are connecting to it through your ISP. You ISP will just see connections to the VPN and not Google.com.
Shouldn't the VPN Encrypt your data then send it to your ISP?
Think of it like hussam said. You want to walk to google, your isp is the Road.
As for the vpn, it is a tunnel( you still use the road, your isp) but now you are inside the tunnel, to a certain level, anonymous.
When you download a picture from example.com, your vpn fetches the pictures, and your isp fetches it from vpn.
Your isp is unable to see example.com
On the other hand, there is something called VPS, now that's a personal server, I used it in the past to fetch torrents with high speed from seeds, then i fetch the file through http.
As for speed, in my opinion, it's a myth. Let's say you are subscribed to 2MB/s, you'll never get beyond that, but it comes in useful when Your ip is blocked from some websites, you're bandwidth being throttled by a certain hosting site, etc. But it'll never get you beyond what you're subscribed to.
I hope it's clear now.
Thank you very much everyone for your insight! I can safely say I know enough about VPN now and how it works. And thanks for the great analogies they were great.
hey could you guys please recommend some decent VPNs that I could try?
NickTheQuick wrotehey could you guys please recommend some decent VPNs that I could try?
I advise looking for a lifetime plan. You can find plenty on stacksocial
I can provide you guys with a vpn account to do your tests