No matter the style of gaming platform you use, from a dedicated console, to a PC, and even your phone, if you’re connecting to the internet, it is good to keep your security and privacy maintained with a VPN. Using a VPN online for gaming not only keeps you safe and secure, but it also has a host of other benefits for you to utilize. Here are some of our favorites and the main reasons we recommend you use a VPN when gaming online.
What Does a VPN Do?
A VPN is a virtual private network. As the name suggests, this technology is used to create a bridge between a remote network pair. When a VPN connection has been established, computers on both networks react as if they had a cabled connection. The data used is usually encrypted to boost security, mainly because a VPN is used over an open internet connection. Your privacy and anonymity are significantly raised as all the data between the networks are encrypted.
Play Early Releases
It is rare for new games to be released simultaneously around the world. When you’ve been waiting a long time for a new game release, it’s frustrating to find out it won’t be coming to your area right away. VPNs allow you to play new releases the day they come out, regardless of where you live. You can play the game wherever you like by connecting to a VPN server.
Reduces Lag and Pint Times
The worst thing when it comes to gaming has to be starting a fight or battle, and then boom, your character is buffering all across the screen due to the sheer amount of lag you’re encountering. One of the main causes of delay to your game, causing lag in a session, is the ping. Ping is the time taken for data to bounce between your device and the game server.
The main concern when experiencing lag is the long ping times encountered from the long distances between your device and the game server. Using a VPN allows you to reduce ping times by connecting to a server that is much closer to your game server. This will be especially noticeable playing features such as Call of Duty Warzone.
Play From Anywhere
A way for many games to regulate players is by using geoblocking technology. This allows players to interact with the servers that are in their region. Blocking allows the same languages to be played together across game servers or if certain countries are given earlier access. Popular games also need the use of multiple servers to handle the global reach needed for the sheer amount of players gaming at a single time.
In the majority of cases, if you’re in the US, you will be automatically connected to a US server, while those in the UK will be connected to a UK or European server. The only problem is if you have friends across the globe and want to strike up a game in their local region.
The great thing about VPNs is that you can connect to servers outside of your local region in a very simple way. Premium VPN software has multiple servers in multiple regions. Simply select the appropriate region and hop onto their corresponding server. Using a VPN hides your real IP address and assigns you an entirely new one meaning that you will have no problems connecting to pretty much anywhere across the globe.
No Bandwidth Throttling
The bandwidth of many internet service providers (ISPs) is throttled or slowed down for a variety of reasons. Network congestion can be reduced by throttling during specific times and days of the week. Gaming, streaming, and file sharing are some of the types of traffic that are throttled automatically by others if they detect specific types of traffic on the network. In addition, many will throttle once certain amounts of data have been transferred.
Games use different amounts of data per hour, depending on what they are. An hour’s worth of gameplay is represented by these averages. Updates for your game are not taken into account by these calculations. Based on the game title, game type, and the game you are playing, the amount of data a game uses varies considerably. Depending on how much you play and how many updates you download, you may reach your daily data cap pretty quickly.
When you use a VPN, your data is encrypted, meaning your ISP cannot determine whether you’re browsing the web or gaming. Your ISP will be unable to throttle your data with most premium VPNs since they can switch the port you use.
