Am I wasting my time?

worhis

Just to be clear, I would have asked about this in IRC if I hadn't been banned for no damn reason.

I have <<poor>> internet, so I watch videos in 360p. As long as it's smooth, I can enjoy it. My problem is that sometimes my download speed drops to 0.13-0.30 Mbps, which means a 15 minute video takes an hour or so to buffer. I'd like to be able to watch World Cup streams without it freezing every 30 seconds, as well.

My Googlings of these issues led me to VPNs. Straight off the bat, is this stuff a complete waste of time? Can using VPN actually solve any of my problems?

If so, how the fuck do I use it? I look up tutorials and guides, and all of them start by leading me to download pages which (eventually) redirect to the same clunky mess at:
http://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/downloads.html

This gets me OpenVPN GUI, which seems to be completely useless to me unless I have the actual client, which is what all of the tutorials are using. But there is no link to get the client from that download page, as far as I can tell. Is it hidden among one of the walls of text? Is there a completely separate download page for the client?

If VPN is actually a waste of time for me, what can I do to help my internet? Are there common problems that cause such low download speeds?

maikcat

I have <<poor>> internet

ok....

My problem is that sometimes my download speed drops to 0.13-0.30 Mbps, which means a 15 minute video takes an hour or so to buffer

ok so far....

My Googlings of these issues led me to VPNs

so googling about your internet speed issues , the results was "use a vpn"? :shock:

is this stuff a complete waste of time?

if you know what a VPN is and what is about....no
if you have no idea of what a VPN is then yes...

ll of them start by leading me to download pages which (eventually) redirect to the same clunky mess at:
http://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/downloads.html

clunky mess? sorry mate i will disagree...

This gets me OpenVPN GUI, which seems to be completely useless to me unless I have the actual client

openvpn installer includes GUI AND the openvpn binary which IS the client or server..

If VPN is actually a waste of time for me, what can I do to help my internet?

surely it would NOT do anything good to you and your internet speeds...
maybe trying to talk to your ISP first?

Are there common problems that cause such low download speeds?

link issues maybe?
what kind of internet do you have?

Michael.

worhis

so googling about your internet speed issues , the results was "use a vpn"? :shock:

It was about ISPs "throttling" connections for high traffic websites like YouTube, or something like this. Apparently using VPN can bypass this by sending the data through the private network instead of the ISP?

openvpn installer includes GUI AND the openvpn binary which IS the client or server..

I used the "Windows Installer (64-bit)" link on the download page. If I go to C://Program Files, I can find in the Bin folder an OpenVPN.exe and OpenVPNserv.exe, both of which just make my Command Prompt appear for a split second when I try to run them. 😐

what kind of internet do you have?

Broadband, but I connect wirelessly. I know it's not the best compared to other options, but on a normal day it will do everything I need.
0.13 Mbps download speed must be ridiculous even for wireless, yeah?

I can understand the idea behind stuff like VPN fairly easily, but without a tutorial or some kind of basic guidelines, I don't have a chance of using it effectively. All of what I look up shows me in the first steps to the download page, then suddenly they have this client. All I can seem to get is GUI 🙁

Sephiroth

My advice would be to not use a VPN, but a proxy. This is what a proxy would be good for. The data from YouTube or whatever would go to the proxy, and it would be relayed to you. I am not saying a VPN would not help either, but with all my years of IT experience, I'd use a proxy before I went through the trouble of configuring a VPN.

TommyBucks

For me, using VPN is better when it comes to internet issue specially if you get one that works well and reasonable cost. How about using a PrimoVPN as replacement of the one that you've used?

Feel free to share your thoughts about it.