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Understanding the Power and Pitfalls of Double VPNs

Double VPNs can provide advanced anonymity. Is this enhanced protection worth the tradeoffs?

Headshot of Mike De Socio
Headshot of Mike De Socio
Mike De Socio Contributor
Mike De Socio is a CNET contributor who writes about energy, personal finance, electric vehicles and climate change. He's also the author of the nonfiction book, "Morally Straight: How the Fight for LGBTQ+ Inclusion Changed the Boy Scouts-And America." His path in journalism has taken him through almost every part of the newsroom, earning awards along the way from the Boston Press Photographers Association and the Society of Professional Journalists. Mike recently became a certified electric coach and aims to drive climate action through electrification education. As an independent journalist, his work has also been published in Bloomberg, The Guardian, Fortune and beyond.
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Mike De Socio
3 min read

Every time you go online, you expose yourself to an array of privacy concerns around your online activity. That's why more and more Americans are gravitating toward VPNs or virtual private networks. 

VPNs are quickly gaining traction because of their ability to encrypt your online data and activity, adding an extra layer of digital privacy. A recent CNET survey found that nearly half of VPN users turn to VPNs to protect their IP address and to help keep their online activities private. 

But for some people, one VPN is not enough. The simplest form of double VPN is known as a multihop connection, which can offer advanced privacy and a second layer of encryption, especially for anyone handling highly sensitive or secret information.

Here's everything you need to know about how a double VPN works and whether you might need one. 

Double VPN pros and cons 

Pros

  • Improved privacy
  • Bypassing content restrictions

Cons 

  • Adds latency and slows down the connection speed
  • Only available with premium VPN services 
double-vpn-visual-illustration

A double VPN is an extra layer of online security, but comes at a cost.

 Zooey Liao/CNET

Single VPN vs. double VPN

A VPN works by "creating a tunnel for your traffic to go through, [and] nobody else can use that same tunnel," said Fred Kwong, vice president and chief information security officer at DeVry University.

Your web traffic travels from your device to a VPN server in the middle and then to the destination website. The VPN encrypts your web traffic, making it unreadable to third parties. When using a VPN, websites and internet service providers can't see your actual IP address, but instead only the IP address of the VPN server in the middle.

For everyday privacy needs, a single VPN is enough for most people, according to Marijus Briedis, chief technology officer at NordVPN.

With a double VPN, however, you add a second server, or a "hop," between your device and the target website. This adds an extra layer of encryption: The second server only knows the IP address of the first server, not your original IP address.

You can also create a double VPN in other ways, for example by establishing a VPN connection on your router and then also through a device connected through your router. You could also establish a connection through one VPN service and then connect through a second service. For most people looking for a double VPN connection, a multihop connection through a single service is the most efficient way to go.

Double VPNs can be useful for people whose work is highly classified or sensitive or who might be working in hostile environments where they want to ensure the utmost privacy. They can also help bypass content restrictions in certain geographic areas by "disguising" your true IP address, but that also can be done on a single VPN connection.

When considering a double VPN, note that the extra privacy comes with a significant tradeoff: a considerable reduction in internet speed. Adding the "second hop" of a double VPN can reduce speeds by up to half, Kwong said.

A double VPN means double the encryption and an increase in latency, said Briedis. Latency is the delay in network performance that impacts a user's experience in gaming and video conferencing, sometimes known as ping. The more servers your data has to travel to, the longer the transit time will be. "It's just simple physics," he said.

Double VPNs also aren't available from all VPN providers, Kwong said, and they might be overkill for the average user. Two CNET-vetted VPN services that offer double VPN coverage include NordVPN and Proton VPN

Reasons you might want a double VPN

Kwong and Briedis agree that a double VPN is unnecessary for most people who use the internet.

A double VPN is best for those who needs extra privacy or protection from online adversaries. Journalists, political activists, whistleblowers and anyone operating in a country with heavy government surveillance or strict censorship laws -- like China, North Korea or Russia -- might fall into this category. Those people should also look into VPN obfuscation, which disguises your traffic so that it appears as regular traffic.