Top Australian VPNs For Gaming
Thanks to titles like PUBG, Fortnite, and League of Legends, the popularity of online gaming has skyrocketed. Fortnite alone has a community of 40 million players online! And just last month one of them won 3 million USD in the first-ever Fortnite ‘World Cup’.
Best Gaming VPNs
In order for a VPN to be suited for gaming, it needs to tick off all the following:
- Having server locations all over the world
- Providing users with fast download and upload speeds
- Having low latency
- Having a focus on strict data protection and privacy policies
- Providing accessible and quality customer support.
With that in mind, here are our picks for best gaming VPNs for Australian gamers in 2019:
Express VPN
Express VPNs provide one of the fastest download speeds on Australian servers. For instance, if your default speed is 95 Mbps, you can expect to hit the 85 Mbps mark. Of course, you’d have to choose the city-level server that’s closest to your location. The fact that Express VPN has city-level servers in four locations in Australia means that no Australian gamer has to worry about latency during local matches.
Additionally, Express VPN has around 3000 servers across 94 countries. This means you’ll be able to compete with gamers from all the corners of the world. Express VPN is compatible with all major Operating systems and Gaming consoles.
IPVanish
IPVanish offers around the same max download speed as Express VPN. If you’re running on a local server, expect to lose only 10% of your default speed. IPVanish has 1300 servers located in 50 different countries. This is comparatively a low number, especially considering Express VPN offers 3000. However, it does issue over 40,000 IP addresses!
IPVanish only offers two city-level server locations in Australia. Both of these are quite far from Perth and surrounding West-Coast cities. So if you live there, you might experience greater latency than gamers from other areas.
IP Vanish is compatible with all major operating systems and gaming consoles.
NordVPN
If you’re playing particularly intense games like Fortnite which require excellent speeds, then NordVPN is the best choice. With a download speed loss of just 5% on local servers, you’ll ensure that sharp reflexes are translated perfectly. In addition, NordVPN has 5600 servers in its global network and owns each one. Australians gamers will be particularly happy about the fact that it’s got 200 city-level servers spread across the country.
NordVPN also provides additional features such as boosted P2P servers for torrenting and double-encryption servers. Plus it’s compatible with all major operating systems and gaming consoles.
VyprVPN
VyperVPN’s speed is comparable to Express VPN, with just 13% loss on average. This means that if you’ve got a 95Mbps connection, then you’ll get capped around 82Mbpbs. But that’s not even its most impressive feature. VyperVPN offers over 200,000 IP addresses spread out across 64 countries!
Gamers from some countries may complain about VyperVPN’s lack of city-level servers. However, that’s not really a problem for us Aussies with servers located over Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.
PrivateVPN
PrivateVPN is slightly faster than Express VPN, with an average speed loss of just 7%. However, it has the lowest number of servers out of this list, with just 150 spread across 59 countries. That being said, PrivateVPN does offer 7000 different IP addresses. This means that you hardly ever have to worry about congestion or latencies.
Why Use A VPN For Gaming?
There are a few ways in which VPNs can enhance your gaming experience:
Bypassing Geo-blocks
Geo-blocking is the practice by which business restrict content or hike up prices based on a user’s location. Geo-blocking is how YouTube is able to block certain videos or Netflix is able to restrict a lot of its content to Australians.
Unfortunately, geo-blocking is common in the gaming industry as well. Australian gamers can’t access some titles and DLCs that are available to those in the US. In addition, most video game companies tend to charge more as well.
VPNs give us the ability to bypass these regional restrictions through virtual IP addresses. Since IP addresses give away our actual locations, video game companies can easily impose restrictions on us. Hence VPNs first mask our true IP addresses using encryption and then create a ‘fake’ one. This new fake VPN fools video game companies into thinking we’re from another country, preferably where no blocks have been rolled out.
Prevent DDoS Attacks
Direct Denial of Service attacks can kick you out of an active game. This is done by sending so much data to your connection that it results in congestion. As a result, you won’t be able to send data to the game servers and you’ll be forfeited from a live match. DDoS attacks are usually carried out by other gamers, especially the overly-competitive type. All they need is your IP address to target you.
VPNs are very useful in this case because they successfully mask your IP address. Not only that, some VPNs are able to detect the rapid firing of data packets and put up a shield against them. This prevents your connection from being congested.
Keep Your Identity Protected
If your IP address isn’t masked, other games can easily look up your location. After that, only a little social engineering may be required to find out your identity. With a virtual IP address, people who try to find out your identity will be led on a wild goose chase. For instance, they might be directed to a city in the US when you’re actually from Australia.
In Conclusion
There some great reasons for using a VPN when gaming. First of all, Australians can bypass unfair regional restrictions in order to purchase titles and DLCs. Secondly, a VPN can keep gamers’ identities protected, preventing both DDoS and personal attacks.
In this article, we reviewed the top five VPNs for Australian gamers. These VPNs are not only the fastest, but they also prevent latencies and have strict data protection policies.