VPN Beginner FAQ: 10 Common Questions Answered

Beginner VPN questions look scattered, but only about ten really come up again and again: how many devices can share one subscription, how data is counted, whether to leave it running, whether speeds get throttled, and how refunds work. This article skips the runaround — each question gets a one-line verdict followed by a way to verify it, so you can judge for yourself instead of scrolling through a dozen forum pages.

The ten questions at a glance

The table below indexes the whole article: questions on the left, verdicts on the right. To dig into any one of them, follow the section headings further down.

Devices and accounts: how many can run at once on one subscription

Verdict: unlimited devices online at once. The same subscription can connect from a computer, a phone and a TV box at the same time without kicking each other offline, and there is no need to buy a second plan for a second device. The real bottleneck is your local bandwidth and the route you pick — the difference between three devices connected and just one comes mainly from what those devices are doing: downloads, video, cloud sync.

As for accounts, no email address is needed to get started. The flow is: pick a plan, pay, receive a subscription link, and you're set — no mailbox to register first and no extra password to remember. The trade-off is that the subscription link is itself the credential: it contains route addresses, ports and protocol parameters, and anyone who has it can connect directly. Sharing it with family is fine; posting it in a public group or sending a screenshot is the same as giving your account away.

On privacy: this service does not log browsing content, and that has nothing to do with device count — sharing one subscription across devices doesn't change it.

Data and billing: how quotas work, monthly plan or data pack

Monthly plan data resets every month on your activation date, not on the 1st of the calendar month. Activate on the 15th and your next reset is the 15th of the following month — an easy detail to miss when comparing prices, yet it decides when you'll hit the quota ceiling. Monthly plans currently come in three tiers: ¥9.9 / ¥18 / ¥28, with the ¥9.9 tier including 60GB and the ¥18 tier including 250GB.

Data packs are the other route: three tiers at ¥158 / ¥358 / ¥658. The data you buy never expires, is deducted as you use it, doesn't reset monthly and doesn't require a monthly renewal.

Don't guess your monthly data — break it down by category: web and social take a little, video takes the bulk, and a single download or cloud sync can equal several days of everything else. The method: log one week of real usage and multiply by 4. If video dominates, estimate at the resolution you actually watch, not the lowest one — that's the easiest item to underestimate.

Monthly plan or data pack: how to choose

Usage habits: whether to leave it on, and whether speeds get throttled

On desktop, leaving it on is fine. The client follows routing rules: only domains and addresses that need international routes go through the accelerated tunnel, while sites in mainland China connect directly. The benefit of leaving it on is that you don't have to toggle it manually, and downloads, video and remote sessions don't drop mid-way.

On mobile, turn it on as needed. For one thing, it drains battery — a persistent connection keeps running in the background; for another, some local services are sensitive to the network environment when roaming, so switching off is simpler. If you do decide to keep it on, add the client to the system's battery-saver allowlist; otherwise the background process gets reclaimed by the system and the connection drops — on Android, 'connects, then drops after a while' is usually this.

When speeds are slow, check in this order

1. Switch to another route and test again at the same time of day. If speed recovers, the bottleneck was the original route.
2. Close other bandwidth-hungry tasks: downloads, cloud sync, video playing on another device.
3. Switch protocol or port in the client (where the client offers that option) — some networks treat certain ports more kindly.
4. Test at different times of day. A clear slowdown during the evening peak (roughly 20:00–23:00) usually means route congestion, not an account problem.

The routes page labels each route by type. IEPL dedicated lines run over point-to-point channels that skip the public internet's intermediate hops, so evening-peak jitter is usually smaller than on relayed or direct routes; but a dedicated line is not unlimited bandwidth — your local broadband's uplink ceiling is still the ceiling. When picking a route, go by type and intended use rather than city name alone.

Clients and subscriptions: which to install, how to import, how to verify

Clients are available for Windows, Android, iOS, macOS and Linux, from the download page in the dashboard. Download installers only from the dashboard, never from unknown third-party mirrors — a tampered installer is a risk you take on yourself.

1. Log in to the dashboard, open the download page and copy the subscription link (on mobile you can also scan the QR code).
2. Open the client, find 'Add subscription / Import config', paste the link and save.
3. Tap 'Update subscription' once to pull the route list.
4. Pick a route (the nearest one, or one labelled for your use case) and hit connect.
5. The first connection triggers a system prompt: VPN permission on mobile, a network extension or admin approval on desktop. Choose Allow.
6. Verify: open any international site and confirm it loads; the client panel shows the current route and connection time.

About protocols: the subscription link already contains route addresses, ports and protocol parameters. Common implementations include Shadowsocks, VMess, Trojan and VLESS; the client pulls them all when it updates the subscription, so there is nothing to fill in by hand. Editing these parameters by hand brings no benefit and makes failed connections more likely. The same applies when you change devices: paste the same subscription link on the new device and update once to get the same route list.

Connected but pages won't load: check these three things

1. DNS queries aren't going through the tunnel

A successful connection only means the tunnel is up — it doesn't mean DNS resolution goes through it too. If the system or browser still resolves through a local DNS server, you may get a nearby CDN node or be flagged by the destination site as an unusual source, which shows up as pages spinning forever or some sites failing to open. How to check: run a DNS leak test and look at which servers handle your lookups; if resolution lands on your local ISP, the queries aren't going through the tunnel. Common triggers are a manually changed system DNS, or a browser with 'secure DNS' enabled and pointed at a third-party service.

2. Routing rules treat the site as a direct connection

Routing rules decide whether traffic goes through the accelerated tunnel based on domain and IP range. A single site often uses several domains: the main domain, a static-asset domain, an API domain. If only some of them match the rules, you get a half-loaded state where the page opens but images and styles don't load. How to check: switch to global mode temporarily and open it again; if it loads, the routing rules are the problem — switch routes, or add that domain to the accelerated rules in the client (where the client supports custom rules).

3. Local proxy conflicts

Other proxy tools or browser extensions installed alongside, or a previous session that didn't exit cleanly, can grab the same port — the symptom is a connection that shows as up but carries no traffic at all. How to check: quit the other proxy tools and extensions, disconnect and reconnect; if that doesn't help, restart the client.

If only one site won't open, switch routes first; if nothing opens at all, confirm the client really is connected, then work through the troubleshooting guide step by step. The guide is grouped by symptom — 'won't connect at all / connects but pages won't load / unusual speeds' — so you can look up what you're seeing.

Payment and refunds: how the 14 days are counted and how to claim

Payment supports Alipay, WeChat and USDT. The refund policy is a 14-day no-questions-asked refund: within 14 days of activation, just open a ticket in the dashboard — no reason needed, and you can follow the refund's progress in the ticket.

Two things worth knowing up front: 'no questions asked' applies to the order itself and has nothing to do with how much data you've used; and try not to file on day 14 exactly — leave processing time so you don't fall outside the window.

Data packs never expire, so if you only use the service a few times a year there's no need to force yourself onto a monthly plan for fear of waste; conversely, daily users don't need to stockpile data packs. If you're unsure, estimate your monthly data the way described above, then compare tiers on the pricing page.

Wrapping up: the mistakes beginners make most

• ❌ Posting your subscription link in a public group or sending a screenshot — it works as a credential, and anyone who has it can connect.
• ❌ Downloading client installers from third-party sites — if the build has been tampered with, the risk is yours.
• ❌ Reinstalling over and over the moment it won't connect — troubleshoot in the order 'switch route → check DNS → check routing rules' first; reinstalling won't fix a route problem.
• ✅ On mobile, add the client to the battery-saver allowlist so the system doesn't reclaim it in the background and drop the connection.
• ✅ Work out your monthly data first, then decide between a monthly plan and a data pack — don't pick purely on which is cheaper.