Well, I’m using the free version - since I only get to use it during this period when I’m unable to access anything which doesn’t happen frequently I just didn’t think it was worth paying for any vpn. I have used only two different VPNs and both of them were free and they both showed slow network connection.
I've started reading your post from the former one, no wonder your internet speed becomes slow when you connect to the VPN. Well, this should not deter you or force you to pay for it or not use a VPN again, you should look for a better one, there are many of them that will give you a free pass and will still not slow down your internet speed. Some will even give you options to indicate that some IPs might be slow and others will be fast and will also show their speed strength for you to know the best one to choose.
Proton VPN is one of them but note that nothing is better compared to a paid VPN.
Most VPNs will slow down our internet speeds because that's how it works and the price we pay for privacy and security. I see some people say that using VPN can improve internet speed but I don't think that's true and in my experience most of the time using VPN makes my internet slower.
I disagree! Even if VPNs cannot improve our internet speed, it is not all of them that will slow it down and I have used countless of them to personally experience it. I noticed that the VPN provider matters and so does the subscription you opt for, but generally, I've been browsing normally with no visible difference in my internet speed with an average VPN used.
See a quote from
Cloudflare:
Can a VPN improve Internet speed? Under specific circumstances, VPNs can increase speeds for certain services. ISPs sometimes throttle, or artificially slow down, specific types of traffic; for example, several major ISPs have throttled streaming entertainment services like Netflix.
The above quote is enough to argue against your claim, though I am not a tech guy, its constructive stance is valid.