Fix guide
How to judge a latency tool before you buy one
This category has a credibility problem, and it is easy to see why: the same product is described as a cure for everything from high ping to low FPS. Here is a way to evaluate any of them without trusting a single review, including ours.
What these tools can and cannot do
A route optimiser changes the path your game traffic takes between your ISP and the game server. That means it can help with congestion or bad peering on the middle part of the route. It cannot shorten physical distance, it cannot fix packet loss on your Wi-Fi link, and it cannot improve FPS, hardware or game netcode.
If a vendor implies otherwise, that is information about the vendor.
Ask these questions before paying
- Which games and which regions does the route actually cover, and from where? A vendor that can answer this specifically is usually a vendor that measures things.
- What is the refund policy, in writing? Prefer a money-back guarantee over "contact support".
- Does the trial require a payment method, and how do you cancel? A trial that bills automatically deserves a calendar reminder.
- Which platforms are supported — and specifically, does it work on your console without extra hardware?
- Is the price per month, and does the discount depend on buying a year upfront?
Red flags
- Promising FPS improvements, or "up to 90% lower ping" without conditions.
- Review pages where every product is rated 4.8 and nothing is criticised.
- Testimonials with no measurement, no region and no before/after numbers.
- Prices that only exist through affiliate links, with no plan page of their own.
Test it properly during the trial
Measure before and after with the same method, at the same time of day, on the same server region. Write the numbers down. If the tool helps, it should show up as a lower and steadier result over several sessions — not as one good game.
Test one game and one region at a time. A tool can be excellent for one route and useless for another, and general impressions average that away.
How we will test, and what we will publish
When we publish a hands-on review, it will include the method, the regions tested, the times of day, and the raw distributions rather than a single number. It will also include the cases where the tool did nothing, because those are the cases readers need most. We have not published a hands-on test yet — until we do, treat anything we write about a specific product as background, not as a verdict.