How to Combine Multiple Internet Connections Into One Super Fast Pipe
You may not realize it, but you probably use multiple internet connections every day: your home network, your phone, and even hotspots and other devices. Downside: You can usually only use one at a time. Imagine if you could combine them all into one huge channel that enables faster downloads, smoother streaming, and clear video calls. Here’s how to do it with the Speedify tool.
Why do you need this?
In most cases, one permanent Internet connection is sufficient. If it’s stable and the bandwidth is good, you really don’t need it anymore. But other times, you’ll want the maximum speed you can get, such as if you’re downloading files in the background while playing your favorite multiplayer games and your roommate is streaming Netflix in the next room. In an ideal world, you could do all of these things without slowing down any of them.
Other times, you want stability, not speed. Perhaps you are traveling and have an unstable connection that is not stable enough to perform any action. If you’ve ever had to sit on a hotel Wi-Fi while waiting for a webpage to load, watched YouTube stutter on every little video, or (in my case) went out to a public event and struggled to download photos from using 4G because of hundreds of other people have tried to do the same, you know what we mean.
This is where the help comes Speedify . Speedify is a combination of software load balancer and VPN from Connectify , a name you might remember . When we last looked at Connectify, we tested Connectify Dispatch, the app that will eventually become Speedify. Connectify Dispatch was a load balancer that distributed your computer’s traffic across all available internet connections that your computer had access to. Think of it like the InternetVoltron : Each of these individual connections – home Ethernet, nearby street Wi-Fi, and your phone’s 4G – are all powerful in their own right, but together they cannot be stopped.
Speedify does (almost) everything Dispatch did , but also includes a built-in VPN. While not designed for security or privacy, it generates some smart traffic on Speedify’s servers, so your traffic is automatically sent to the connection that’s best suited for it. It also offers seamless failover, so if that unstable hotel Wi-Fi goes down, you can keep browsing on 4G without missing a beat. Even apps that can’t use multiple connections like Dropbox and security-focused VPNs (which you can actually run through Speedify) can be optimized.
Speedify isn’t free, however. As it is both software and service, prices are based on subscription. You can try it for free up to 1GB to see if it works for you and the connections you have to connect, but after that you can get 50GB for $ 9 a month, $ 69 a year, or no cap. data for $ 19 per month or $ 149 per year. It’s available for both OS X and Windows, and one license gives you an account that you can use on multiple computers (for personal use).
How to link and speed up your connections
Start working with Speedify quite simple. Since they have a free trial, we’ll help you set it up. Here’s what you need to do.
- Create a free account on the Speedify website. After creating your account, you will have a username and password that you will use to log into the Speedify service.
- Connect your computer to an ethernet connection, connect it to your local wifi network and plug in your 4G USB stick, or set up your phone for a USB tethering. If you have another Wi-Fi card, such as a USB Wi-Fi adapter, connect that as well. Basically, plug in any network adapters you want to use with Speedify and make sure they are turned on. This will ensure that the adapter is still available even when you are not using it and Speedify can see it.
- Then download the Speedify desktop app for Windows (Windows 7 or 8) or OS X (10.8+).
- Now run the Speedify installer. On Windows, Speedify will ask for confirmation during installation because it adds a virtual network adapter to your system. On OS X it will do the same and prompt you for your system password twice to complete the installation and run it the first time.
- Once the installation is complete, Speedify will prompt you to sign in or create an account. Since you already created your account in the first step, go ahead and sign in. It automatically connects you to the best Speedify server near you and then automatically balances all network connections available on your computer. It also runs a small speed test and you will see your connection speed, both up and down, displayed as a rainbow between your computer and the cloud, along with a list of all your available network adapters. Do not close this window – you will be able to watch and see what happens when the connection drops or when you actually check this speed.
Once up and running, Speedify is fairly straightforward to use. You can click the name of the Speedify server you are connected to at any time to select a different one or see what the latency looks like for that server. If you need to torrent, you’ll want to switch to a P2P-friendly server with good latency (unfortunately, in our tests, most servers were marked NO P2P, although there were a few at the end of the list where P2P traffic was okay.)
