Months into the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, streaming platforms such as Netflix and Hulu are more important than ever for helping us get through the days stuck inside. That makes it all the more frustrating when a show stutters and stops right at the climax thanks to bad Wi-Fi. The collective groans, the held breath as loading stalls at 99 percent, the children crying for Elsa or Moana to come back: All of these could be avoided if the internet just stayed steady. But alas, steady internet is rarely our reality, and in many areas, monopolies or duopolies of Spectrum, AT&T or other local providers make it hard to just switch companies.
What's worse, with last year's Supreme Court decision to decline to hear an appeal on net neutrality, internet service providers (ISPs) can still legally throttle your internet, limiting your broadband if you're streaming more YouTube or Hulu than they want and providing slower connections to websites owned by their competitors.
Luckily, there's a solution to some of these problems: the virtual private network. Basically, ISPs need to see your IP address to slow down your internet, and a good VPN will shield that identity -- though it comes with some downsides, which I'll discuss below. Here's how to find a VPN and use it to check whether your ISP is artificially slowing down your internet.
Please select this link to read the complete article from CNet.