well yes and no. I was saying my experience with my VPN. So it's not entirely about the VPN but i did explain performance differences on games and internet surfing and what not.
About the IT buddy of mine, i did try his suggestion about the network interface device added when you install the vpn, i uninstalled it today to see if it actually did make a difference in performance. To my surprise, it did actually. IDK if it can be just right timing but on speedtest on average after doing about 10 consecutive tests with without VPN on, and uninstalling VPN (total of 30 tests), i did improve by 5Mb/s which is saying that the protocol added by the VPN installation did something to the performance. Now with high speed 5Mb/s doesn't make much of a difference. Gaming that doesn't really matter with those number. Though in general nice to know that VPN does create a bottleneck when it installs the virtual network device.
That's not how networking works >.< Right click on your NIC -> properties. That's the list of protocols that will run on that NIC. Mine has IPv4/IPv6/VM Bridge Protocol/QoS and some other ones. Installing a VPN does does not add protocols to that list. There's something else going on here.
And to demonstrate the significance of a change, it's necessary to run formal statistical analysis. Take the 30 speed tests, calculate the average and standard deviation of the same. Then run without the vpn adapter or with some protocol box unchecked and see if the result is at least 2, preferably 3 standard deviations from the mean. Doing so gets rid of confirmation bias and can be put on a pretty graph which goes a long way towards convincing skeptical folk that the change is real, not the result of confirmation bias.
From the topic of this post speaking of pitfalls of a VPN, I am deployed in the US military and use a VPN to maintain access to certain US sites. whenever i make an online purchase when using the VPN it just doesn't work. I have to turn off the VPN then click the checkout button. If there is anyone else using Private Internet Access, please let me know if you are having a similar problem.
My brother works for Comcast and I asked if they had a watch list, he said yes. It's a list where they periodically check on what your looking at on a live basis, and they also keep a log of everything you did so they can go back and make sure you aren't doing anything illegal. He said they actually do watch these, but he has seen a few people get they're service revoked and/or reported for downloading torrents etc.
This guy, learn to read a little more. I said it ADDS ANOTHER NETWORK DEVICE....Meaning it adds a virtual adapter. I didn't say it adds to the Intel NIC. When both are active, i've been told that it may interfere with one another. Prioritization protocols, QoS, etc. Before i had just Ethernet which had the same stuff you said. Now it adds a second device called Local Area Connection 2 which is under a virtual hardware named "TAP-Win32 Adapter V9". It adds Client for Microsoft Networks/File and Printer Sharing/QoS/Link-Layer Topology Discovery Mapper and Responder, IPv4/IPv6 this is the same stuff located on the Ethernet. When multiple of the same protocols run with slight variations on both ends(and the protocols are slightly modified), things may change or interfere with one another.
You make it sound like it's for a fact, all i was saying is that it's a POSSIBLE explanation of what may be happening. It may not make a large difference but if the adapter is working in serial, that means they rely on each other and then the data has to go to the from the Intel NIC to the virtual NIC and then to the user. This isn't 2 hardware NICs, it's 1 Hardware and 1 Virtual.
I love my VPN, but I also spoof my mac address (You'll be surprised what people can do with this), use a firewall (block unauthorized outgoing and incoming connections), and installed HTTPS Everywhere & NoScript on my browser. Some people recommend Tor and the Tor Browser, but I haven't tried it. https://www.torproject.org/index.html.en
Oh also remember if you're using Windows 8, NSA supposedly has backdoor access to it...so switch to Linux if you can..if you can't I guess just unplug your webcam and mic when you're not using them.
I am truly not surprised ISPs have watchlists, but there are more than just ISPs that you need to guard your privacy from (NSA, Hackers, and Large Corporations).
I have PIA and I'm not sure if its just because I live in the same state as one of their servers but I get the same download and upload speeds and my ping in CS:GO is only around the 150 area which in my eyes is completely playable with very minimal lag.
From your original post: "it creates another network device and then creates alternative network protocols" Hence why I thought you really meant network protocols in addition to the virtual nic. But again, that's not how the tcp/ip stack or nic prioritization works. If you have the vpn disconnected, the virtual NIC will not interfere with the throughput of the physical nic. If you have a vpn connected, then you're actively using the virtual NIC and the protocols associated with it so then it's possible for throughput to be affected since your chaining an extra tcp/ip stack + encryption software to every existing packet.
But if you're not using it (with the vpn disconnected), then it doesn't affect anything. There are no "alternative network protocols" added to every NIC when installing the TAP adapter and the prioritization won't affect bandwidth. So since you were saying that these added protocols (or the TAP adapter itself) seemed to affect the bandwidth and your slight testing seemed to confirm it, I'm clarifying that this should not be the case and that you need to perform an actual detailed analysis to confirm that it is happening in order to rule out confirmation bias.
If Cox ever asks about your internet usage say you are covered under federal law and will not disclose that information. Cox has a very bad tendency for asking its customers about irrelevant information, especially towards VPN usage.
Tell Cox that if they don't remove your account from the "watch list" (Assuming it effects speeds without a VPN) you will bring the issue to court. In addition tell them you want a refund/compnesation for however long they keep you in the "watch list" and are throttling the services you pay for.
Also with any ISP call tech support first, standard customer support can be beyond stupid.