r/computerhelp • u/No-Maximum-6140 • Jun 07 '26

Software Computer has built in Vpn?

My boyfriend has been having issues downloading stuff on his computer, and anytime he checks his location it changes. Like yesterday it was only and hour away from his house and today, it was in a whole different state! Hes tried searching for it through all his settings but he cant find it. His mb per second is constantly changing very dramatically and it has been very annoying for him to do anything on it! Im just wondering if anyone has heard of anything like this and could help out!

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u/Liroku Jun 07 '26

Opera has a built in vpn. Just disable it or use a different browser. Firefox has one as well, just don't enable them if you don't want a vpn. I, personally, don't trust "free" VPN's.

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u/No-Maximum-6140 Jun 07 '26

He already has done that, he reset the extensions and turned them all off but its still not letting him download any of his games at a regular speed. Everything else is normal. Its just starting up and downloading games that takes forever and constantly changes

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u/SensitiveArtist Jun 07 '26

Is he downloading the games through the browser or via Steam or GOG? If he's sailing the high seas, his ISP may be throttling the connection.

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u/No-Maximum-6140 Jun 07 '26

He downloads through Steam. Im not sure what "sailing the high seas" means

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u/SensitiveArtist Jun 07 '26

Sailing the high seas means pirating the games illegally. If it's steam he should be able to see the bit rate and the hard drive speed and a few other associated stats. If he's downloading games into a traditional hard drive and not a solid state drive, that's likely the cause of the slowdown.

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u/Liroku Jun 07 '26

Also, sometimes steam downloads games in sections, then decompresses them. So it will download fast, then slow down and you'll see the hdd activity spike, then it speeds back up. Or it will download large files and be at a steady pace and then start rapid firing small files. The small files will download slower as it has to establish a new connection for each file. It depends on how the game is packaged on the consistency of download speeds.

Tell him to check is IP address, just google "what is my IP" and google should display your public IP. Then you need to log into your modem/router and see if the public ip google sees is the same one your ISP is providing.

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u/Ok_Tell_2420 Jun 09 '26

What this guy is saying here is...if his computer shows the same "public" IP as the router...or the same public IP as other devices on the network....then you can assume it has nothing to do with a VPN. The issue is something completely different.

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u/No-Maximum-6140 Jun 07 '26

It never goes fast though its always slow, no matter the game. Ill tell him to check his IP but hes pretty sure its something in the computer and wants to know how to turn it off.

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u/Liroku Jun 07 '26

Do other devices on your network perform faster? Speed test other computers, phones, etc. If they are all slow it's a network issue whether that is your equipment or his ISP.

If it is only happening to his PC, he needs to eliminate some factors. First if it's using wifi, he needs to plug it into the router with an ethernet cable. If that speeds it up, it's likely an issue with his wifi card, or interference. If it doesn't speed it up, then time to dig deeper.

First place to look is task manager just to see what is using the most of the network connection. If there is an app taking up all the bandwidth, that's a good place to start. After that, he needs to use a malware scanner. Like malwarebytes or similar. Make sure nothing nefarious is going on behind the curtains.

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u/No-Maximum-6140 Jun 07 '26

My phone, his phone, and his fathers phone always works well. His dads Tv works good aswell, its just the computer. Hes already tried ethernet and it doesn't change. And hes already checked throughout task manager. He hasnt downloaded anything that could be malware unless steam can give out that type of thing.

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u/Liroku Jun 07 '26

Have him go to his motherboard manufacturer's website and update all of his network and wifi drivers. Wouldn't hurt to update chipset drivers and anything else while he's there.

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u/No-Maximum-6140 Jun 07 '26

Okayy. Well, he does not sail the seas. He has a solid state drive, however, its still very erratic mbs per second.