I've searched through some of the posts here and can't seem to find a thread that helps me out. How do you guys figure out if you are being throttled? Is there a program that I could use to determine if certain websites/services are being throttled by my ISP or is it just based on empirical evidence?
I've tried private internet access and wasn't that impressed with the service. It seemed to make more of a difference on my phone when out and about rather than at home, but my PCs didn't seem to really benefit from it.
Yeah you'll have to make some practical tests. Like for instance looking at how well things like Youtube does with and without the VPN. To be certain you should compare at different times of the day or over a couple of days. If you don't notice much of a difference then chances are that your service is not currently throttled in a significant way.
My own service is not for instance, but I still like to use a VPN like PrivateInternetAccess whenever I'm not gaming. For me it's very nearly just as fast with the VPN on and I like the basic idea of the internet supplier and other middle-men not being able to see and log more or less everything.