Why Do Streamers Use VPNs?
New to streaming? Not new to streaming, but someone told you that you should use a VPN and now you’re wondering about it? Whatever the case, as something of a streamer myself, I can help answer this question. In short? Yes, a lot of streamers use VPNs, and for many good reasons.
The biggest concern for most full-time streamers is security, along with maintaining a good connection to their live streaming service and game servers. A VPN can help you out with both of those things, and can even sometimes lower your ping.
Mind you, the security concerns only increase in severity as a streamer grows more popular. And if they play multiplayer games, a VPN’s ability to protect against attacks becomes all the more important. Read on to find out how PIA VPN can help keep you safe and keep your latency low as you stream to (hopefully) thousands of people at once.
Quick Guide: How to Stream with a VPN
Getting started with PIA is simple and easy, no matter what your streaming setup.
- Sign up for PIA and install the app on the device you use for streaming, or your router.
- Connect to a VPN server in the same city as the data center for your streaming service (which would ideally be in the same city as your game server).
- Play and stream to your heart’s content!
Table of Contents
The Top Reasons Streamers Use VPNsHow to Stream with a VPN without Losing Speed
Why PIA Is the Best VPN for Streamers
Should You Stream with a VPN?
FAQ
The Top Reasons Streamers Use VPNs
1. Staying Protected from DDoS Attacks
Routing your internet traffic (including game traffic and your stream) through a VPN server hides your IP address from anyone on the other side. So, even if someone manages to find your real IP through your streaming platform or game, they won’t be able to attack your home network directly.
The best part? The really good VPNs will have built-in DDoS mitigation. That means that if you get attacked, your viewers shouldn’t even see a dip in stream quality, and you shouldn’t experience any game lag.
2. Bypassing Throttling and Network Blocks
Sometimes, for reasons best left to the imagination, your local network admin or ISP might block access to certain games or streaming platforms. It’s silly, but it happens. Well, a good VPN will encrypt all of the data sent from your gaming/streaming devices to the VPN server and back. This along with the fact that the destination is a VPN server will get you past most local and ISP network blocks.
Now sometimes, ISPs will intentionally throttle (slow down) traffic to specific websites, services, and even games. This is also very silly – but the same encryption and traffic routing that get you past plain old blocks will also negate selective traffic throttling.
3. Reducing the Risk of Data Theft
Streamers stream from all sorts of places. Their homes, to be sure, but also other people’s homes, hotel Wi-Fi networks, and even school or coffee shop networks in a pinch. The problem is that anyone who is running the public network, or who has hacked into it, can see everything that you’re doing… unless you use a VPN.
Once again, the encryption and routing save the day, as these prevent anyone on your same network from seeing what you’re doing. It’s especially nice that they can’t see stuff like credit card info that you might be using to buy your games.
4. Playing Games in Other Parts of the World
A good gaming VPN will have servers all over the world, and be designed to search for the fastest possible connection to those servers. If you’re trying to play a game with friends halfway around the world, that can cause lag. Streamers in particular tend to collaborate with people who are very far away.
A VPN can allow you to establish a more stable connection to remote game servers. Live in the US, and want to work with that awesome fellow streamer in the UK? A VPN can help make that happen.
Reducing Lag
Now this is a somewhat circumstantial benefit, but here’s how it works: In an ideal world, your data would always take the most direct route from your computer to the game server and back. Likewise, this should be the case for your streaming platform’s data center. However, sometimes your signal can get delayed by bad routing (usually a problem with your ISP), or by heavily congested networks along the way.
A good VPN gets around these problems by always seeking out the fastest possible route between your network and the VPN server. So long as your chosen VPN server is close to your intended destination, this can actually reduce lag, and lower your ping.
How to Stream with a VPN without Losing Speed
First, you need to sign up for PIA. That’s the really simple part.
Now, depending on your streaming setup, this next bit can be really simple, or just mostly simple. If you’re gaming on a PC, Android device, or iOS device… and streaming from the same device, you can just install PIA and go. Just make sure you pick a VPN server that is ideally in the same city as your nearest game server to reduce lag. If everything goes right, your nearest data center for your streaming platform should be in the same city as well.
Now, if you have a two-PC streaming setup, you can actually just connect your streaming PC to whichever server is closest to (for example) Twitch’s nearest data center, and your gaming PC to whichever server is best for your game. It’s the best of both worlds… if rather expensive.
If you game on a console, and use a capture card and a PC to do the streaming, you can install PIA on your PC to protect your stream traffic. However, you can’t can’t install VPN apps on consoles directly. The better solution for this case, and for people who stream from their console directly, is to install PIA on their router, and protect all their traffic at once.
Notes: not all routers support using VPNs, and again, you’ll want to connect to a VPN server that’s in the same city as everything else you’ll want to connect to.
Then just go live, and ask a friend to see how long it takes them to hear you respond to chat messages. It’s the best free way to test real-world latency conditions.
Why PIA Is the Best VPN for Streamers
PIA VPN has several advantages that make it ideal for gaming. Firstly, there’s the massive network of VPN servers all around the world. This makes it possible to get the best possible connection to just about any game or stream site data center you want. Mind you, these are 10-Gbps NextGen servers, which means you could stream to multiple sites, watch Netflix, and play a competitive shooter all at the same time if you want.
PIA also uses 256-bit AES encryption (a favorite of militaries and governments around the world) to protect all data between your home network and our servers. Pair that with our advanced ad blocker, kill switch, and no-logs policy, and you have a very secure VPN.
But one of the things that really sets PIA apart is our support for gaming consoles. While most consoles can’t install VPN apps, we can help you get set up with a VPN on your router, or on a PC that you can use as a virtual router to protect your console. If you can game on it, we can help you protect it with a VPN.
Should You Stream with a VPN?
Yes. Between the security benefits, the better connections, the protection from attacks, and more, a VPN just makes sense. I mean, if it all goes well, your streaming career is going to make you famous-ish. But being famous-ish comes with risks and dangers, and a good VPN can add a sorely-needed layer of security.
And that’s why we recommend giving PIA a shot. It provides the security, the speed, and the convenience you’ll want for a great price. You can even try it risk-free with our 30-day money-back guarantee.
FAQ
Practically speaking, it’s a darned good idea. Technically, you can certainly stream without a VPN. But, you know, it’s probably better to use one. Increased security, better connections, better privacy, protection from certain kinds of attacks… these are just a few of the things a VPN can do for you while you stream.
Absolutely! A VPN can hide your IP address, which makes it hard for anyone to hit your home network with a DDoS attack – which is something that people will use against streamers a lot. Plus, the encryption of all data between your home network and the VPN server can help to limit the vulnerability of your data. VPNs can also reduce your ping sometimes.
For the same reason any other streamers will use a VPN: to get more stable connections, to protect themselves from DDoS attacks, to get around local network blocks, and even reduce their ping in some circumstances. The COD gaming scene is particularly competitive, and streamers will use any advantage they can get their hands on.
Whichever VPN is working for them. We don’t have any hard data on this, but we can tell you that PIA makes a fantastic gaming VPN, thanks to a worldwide network of 10-Gbps NextGen VPN servers, military-grade encryption, a suite of extra security features, and support for consoles, and almost any other device you could game on.
Yes. Or rather, it doesn’t explicitly ban VPNs. If you’re just using a VPN to help get a safer and faster connection, then Twitch certainly won’t have any issue with you, and you won’t be breaking the terms of service. That being said, if you use a VPN to try and game the system in any way, or engage in generally bad behavior, you will still get into trouble. Them’s the rules.
Well, there are free VPNs, but streamers shouldn’t use them. In most cases, neither should anyone else. They usually have small, overloaded networks with a limited number of server locations. And the ones that aren’t just “busy” tend to be poorly maintained and insecure. And, you know, that’s when they’re not outright selling your data to third parties.
Instead, you can try PIA VPN risk-free with our 30-day money-back guarantee.
