IPVanish Unlocks 196% Faster VPN Speeds on Windows

IPVanish has introduced High-Speed Mode for its Windows application, integrating OpenVPN Data Channel Offload (DCO). This significant upgrade aims to enhance OpenVPN protocol speeds, which have historically been a limitation compared to newer protocols like WireGuard.

DCO moves encryption tasks to the operating system's core, reducing latency and CPU load without compromising security. IPVanish reports internal tests achieved download speed increases of up to 196% on UDP and 131% on TCP, with upload speeds also seeing substantial gains. The company also updated its OpenVPN cipher from AES-256-CBC to AES-256-GCM, reportedly reducing server connection times by 32%.

This DCO functionality is exclusive to Windows due to kernel restrictions on other operating systems like macOS, iOS, and Android. Users can enable High-Speed Mode by updating their Windows app and selecting the OpenVPN protocol in settings. However, a key limitation is that High-Speed Mode cannot be used concurrently with OpenVPN Scramble, IPVanish's obfuscation feature.

Several other VPN providers have also adopted OpenVPN DCO on their Windows clients, including ExpressVPN, Windscribe, Norton VPN, Surfshark, NordVPN, and PrivadoVPN, though many services are increasingly favoring WireGuard.