Maybe you’ve got a thing for British detective shows, or maybe you want to stream a game that’s blacked out in your geographic area. Or maybe you want to keep your private TV viewing habits, well, private.
Virtual private networks can help in all of those situations, but most smart TVs aren’t compatible with VPNs right out of the box. That said, pretty much any smart TV can be hooked up to a VPN, and even if your TV isn’t of the smart variety, you still might be able to use a VPN with it — provided you have the right equipment.
There are various ways to go about setting up your VPN to work with your TV. But which route you choose to take will depend on your personal preference, technical know-how, budget and what equipment you have access to. We’ll show you some of the ways you can set a VPN up on a TV and highlight why you would want to do so.
Why use a VPN on a TV?
Today’s TVs aren’t just for watching local network programming or cable TV. They’re also for streaming video on demand from your go-to streaming providers.
The amount of streaming content available today might seem limitless already, but some content is regionally locked. If you’re itching for more, or if the programming you want to watch isn’t available in your country, you can use a VPN on your smart TV to spoof your location to access virtually any of the content you may want.
If, say, you’re in the UK but you want to stream programming that’s only available in the US, then you can hook your VPN up to your smart TV and connect to a server in the US. Since the VPN changes your IP address to a US IP address in the process, the streaming service you’re visiting will assume you’re in the US and serve up American programming, even if you’re across the Atlantic. Just make sure to check with your streaming service of choice to confirm that using a VPN doesn’t violate its terms of service. You don’t want to risk losing access to your streaming account for any reason.
Even if unblocking geo-restricted…
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