A REVIEW: Because you have to have it open for 5 minutes to post in steam reviews.

[Hex: Maidenless]

I'm posting this here for anyone wondering what this is good for, since Steam Reviews requires you to keep the product open for five minutes, yet Steam itself does not actually recognize that you have it open beyond the first few seconds (How the hell the few people managed to keep it open long enough to write what little reviews there are, I've got no damn clue.)

I used this product for some time prior to it finding its way to Steam, and I can safely tell that it most definitely works, however, it takes a bit more than just turning it on.

This is a VPN. It is essentially a private network of servers that form their own seperate connection web. Utilizing a VPN will generally increase packet speed, as there is less traffic to deal with, and the servers are directly connected. On top of that, it eliminates the factor of your ISP possibly having problems connecting to whatever you are trying to connect to, as so long as your ISP has a solid connection to the VPN itself, your connection will go through.
It was for this reason that i utilized WTFast; in my area, I found that Verizon FiOs was having regular connectivity problems with the data servers for Final Fantasy XIV, resulting in odd points of lag, or downright total disconnection amidst heavy pulls in dungeons at worst. WTFast completely fixed that problem, and improved my connection to such an extent that during the various DDOS attacks against Square's servers at the end of 2014, I was amongst the maybe 10 people who were able to stand in the middle of Mor Dhona and not get kicked off (Though we all still felt the lag in full force, it was amusing to see a small batch of people amidst what generally looks like a busy city square just sort of going "Where the hell did everyone go?").
That said, I won't say my experience with it was flawless.

If you intend to use this, or any sort of VPN, it takes a bit more than just turning it on and going "YAY LESS LAG!" Essentially, the level of improvement in your connection will depend on two things: Your connection to the VPN, and the VPN's proximity to either you, or the servers you are trying to route to. That is to say, if you're trying to connect to a game that hosts its servers in California, you live in New York, and you try to route your connection through the VPN's servers in Texas, you're not only going to not see any improvement, you're actually going to see a worse connection. There are two ways to go about this: Connect to the VPN's server closest to you, which will see some improvement, although likely not as much as you would hope for, or the more appropriate method of connecting to the VPN's server closest to the server you are attempting to connect to. Going back to my example of FFXIV, the North American Data Servers for the game are located in Montreal, so whenever I wanted to connect to XIV, I would route my connection to one of WTFast's Montreal servers.

Near the end of my time playing XIV (I played for like four months straight and got a bit burned out) I was experiencing a bit of strangeness on WTFast's front. Specifically, it seemed like their servers were having some trouble, I don't know if it was ongoing maintenance or if they were having technical difficulties, but there were a number of times; once every day/every other day where the server I was routing through would just go dark. I'd lose my connection to the game entirely and have to re-connect through a different one to get back in. Especially annoying when it happened amidst a Dungeon run and I would get kicked from the group for falling offline.

I would also add I never got it to connect properly to Marvel Heroes, though I only tried once. I had difficulty locating the main server locations for Marvel Heroes besides "California," so I was unsure as to where to route the connection. Still, given my success using it for XIV, I doubt greatly that it would not have worked, had I given it more effort (I didn't actually need it for MH anyway, it was just a try for kicks. I never had any serious connection problems with Gazillion's servers.)

All and all, I would recommend WTFast if you have need for a VPN. It genuinely can improve your connection, provided you connect to the right server. If you use WTFast or any VPN and you find yourself with a worse connection, you either set something up wrong, or the VPN is having technical difficulties, simple as that. I can say, beyond the shadow of a doubt, this is in no way a scam, and when I return to XIV within the next few days, if Square and Verizon still haven't sorted their ♥♥♥♥ out, WTFast will be my go-to to make it work again.

[SpicyFemme]

So, I'm already paying for a VPN (Private Internet Access), is there any reason to use this instead? Or is it literally just a specially marketed VPN?

[Bad_Conduct]

Using a VPN won't increase your internet connection speed.

Even if you see a faster ping (because it's pinging the VPN IP address, and not your local IP address), the data still travels from the VPN server back to you through the exact same network infrastructures.

Steam hosts a game server. I connect from my home modem, through my local ISP, to the Tier 2 and Tier 2 networks in my country, which goes through fiber connections into the U.S. network, into their Tier 1 networks, into Steams ISP, into their server.
You do the same and we meet in that server. Some games will communicate between us directly.

It doesn't matter whether I connect to the VPN, and then to the Steam server. It doesn't skip anything. It just adds an extra step. Unless they built their own fiber lines between ISP.

Your bottleneck is still going to be your local connection speed and your local ISP.

It smells like big datacollecting BS.

[Hex: Maidenless]

DigChrono の投稿を引用：

So, I'm already paying for a VPN (Private Internet Access), is there any reason to use this instead? Or is it literally just a specially marketed VPN?

Not particularly, yeah it is just a specially marketed VPN. The software is designed specifically to connect to games supported by it, so it isn't useful as a normal VPN to non-gaming usage. If you aren't having problems with your VPN, there's no real reason to switch to one that is more limiting.

Bad_Conduct の投稿を引用：

Using a VPN won't increase your internet connection speed.

Even if you see a faster ping (because it's pinging the VPN IP address, and not your local IP address), the data still travels from the VPN server back to you through the exact same network infrastructures.

Steam hosts a game server. I connect from my home modem, through my local ISP, to the Tier 2 and Tier 2 networks in my country, which goes through fiber connections into the U.S. network, into their Tier 1 networks, into Steams ISP, into their server.
You do the same and we meet in that server. Some games will communicate between us directly.

It doesn't matter whether I connect to the VPN, and then to the Steam server. It doesn't skip anything. It just adds an extra step. Unless they built their own fiber lines between ISP.

Your bottleneck is still going to be your local connection speed and your local ISP.

It smells like big datacollecting BS.

I suppose I should have worded that better, because you're absolutely right, it won't increase your internet speed, rather, it offers you a far more stable connection to the game's server, which is why it works for people who use them to try to fix connectivity issues. That generally will result in better latency (less packet -loss-, not speed, which is where I derped it up) and, depending on your own individual situation, a more fluid connection overall.
When I talk about having problems with XIV, I don't mean "I got better ping." I mean that once whatever problem came up between Squeenix's servers and FiOS in my region started, the game became COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY UNPLAYABLE from around 7-8PM to around 5AM EST. It wasn't a matter of inconvenience, it was a matter of crippling connection failure. I started using WTFast because after looking up the problem and finding out it was an ISP issue, the best solution given (Barring gratuitous amounts of complaining to Verizon) was to use a VPN to stabilize my connection. Case and point, it worked, and I played XIV for four months following.
The Ping drop was marginal at best, but there was a exceptionally noticable change in stability; little things like gathering nodes taking 1-1.5 seconds to activate without it, activating instantly with it, without fail. The whole "IT WILL MAKE YOU FASTER" notion is marketing crap that I don't particularly care for, but I can't deny that the service does do what it is intended to do, because it rendered a game I enjoyed that had become unplayable, playable again.

[Bad_Conduct]

I don't see how it's "more stable". It's just rerouting your traffic from the same point A to a different point B to the same point C.

If your local cable ISP has a traffic fluctations between 7 and 9 PM, you're going to experience it even if the pings show differently. Your connection to the VPN is still going to drop packets.

I guess you could argue the game data is maintaining a connection to the VPN server, even if your local connection is flapping or dropping packets, thus keeping you connected if your connection drops briefly.

I still find this suspecious though. You are not rerouting traffic to the extent the video shows, and you are are adding an additional layer of complexity and overhead to your existing network connection (assuming it's even encypted).

[EthicalPixel]

Can actually have adverse effects ..

If software is avail for those who need an alternative source to help them get connected to play games well im all for it, has anyone used this for a good amount of time ? has this been out but just coming to steam recently?

Bad_Conduct の投稿を引用：

Using a VPN won't increase your internet connection speed.

Even if you see a faster ping (because it's pinging the VPN IP address, and not your local IP address), the data still travels from the VPN server back to you through the exact same network infrastructures.

Steam hosts a game server. I connect from my home modem, through my local ISP, to the Tier 2 and Tier 2 networks in my country, which goes through fiber connections into the U.S. network, into their Tier 1 networks, into Steams ISP, into their server.
You do the same and we meet in that server. Some games will communicate between us directly.

It doesn't matter whether I connect to the VPN, and then to the Steam server. It doesn't skip anything. It just adds an extra step. Unless they built their own fiber lines between ISP.

Your bottleneck is still going to be your local connection speed and your local ISP.

It smells like big datacollecting BS.

[EthicalPixel]

Peaks and traffic (outbound/inbound) as well as ports config come into play with any connection to server.. Nothing can fix isp delays, i would imagine that vpn might actually have adverse effects but maybe very slight (ms) with this program?
I used VPN when was out of the country and i never founf it to create better anything, maybe this is somehow different idk.

If it works for people and its free well gg

Bad_Conduct の投稿を引用：

I don't see how it's "more stable". It's just rerouting your traffic from the same point A to a different point B to the same point C.

If your local cable ISP has a traffic fluctations between 7 and 9 PM, you're going to experience it even if the pings show differently. Your connection to the VPN is still going to drop packets.

I guess you could argue the game data is maintaining a connection to the VPN server, even if your local connection is flapping or dropping packets, thus keeping you connected if your connection drops briefly.

I still find this suspecious though. You are not rerouting traffic to the extent the video shows, and you are are adding an additional layer of complexity and overhead to your existing network connection (assuming it's even encypted).

[Rammur]

Its a gaming vpn basically only traffic that should actually be flowing through is the gamers shouldnt be any other traffic clogging you up kinda like a drain pipe. Internet works in strange ways.

[Brofister]

I used this last year for a bit back when my connection to Riot's servers was seeing uncommon ping spikes, or even packet loss. Many on the east coast were seeing the exact same latency increase and some diagnostics determined the specific hop that was the culprit.

This tool allowed me to bypass the poor routing and get my usual latency back. So to be clear, WTFast isn't going to fix something that isn't broken.

[zombu2]

Brofister の投稿を引用：

I used this last year for a bit back when my connection to Riot's servers was seeing uncommon ping spikes, or even packet loss. Many on the east coast were seeing the exact same latency increase and some diagnostics determined the specific hop that was the culprit.

This tool allowed me to bypass the poor routing and get my usual latency back. So to be clear, WTFast isn't going to fix something that isn't broken.

if you add a vpn you will actually slow yourself down by adding the extra overhead

[Bad_Conduct]

zombu3 の投稿を引用：

Brofister の投稿を引用：

I used this last year for a bit back when my connection to Riot's servers was seeing uncommon ping spikes, or even packet loss. Many on the east coast were seeing the exact same latency increase and some diagnostics determined the specific hop that was the culprit.

This tool allowed me to bypass the poor routing and get my usual latency back. So to be clear, WTFast isn't going to fix something that isn't broken.

if you add a vpn you will actually slow yourself down by adding the extra overhead

Yes, but if the ISP is managing traffic flow by manipulating ports, it's possible that using the VPN port for all traffic would bypass any port management or QoS done by the ISP at any level.

Webmail or bittorrent traffic, for example, are blocked or throttled.

[FieserMoep]

What year is this? How can people take garbage like this serious? Do they still believe you can get a cold by surfing the web?

[zombu2]

only in the winter time when the cables are cold