How to use a VPN on Roku

The Roku good TV platform is an accessible method to watch your favourite streaming content material in a centralized location – both built-in to TVs, or by including inexpensive dongles or set-top packing containers to older televisions. However, a frequent frustration for any good TV or streaming service consumer is that among the finest exhibits and films are inaccessible due to geo-restrictions.

Using a VPN is a frequent method to deal with this challenge, however in contrast to Fire TV, Apple TV and different rivals, Roku techniques don’t have native VPN help. But that’s not the tip of the story: You can nonetheless use a VPN to entry a wider vary of programming through a Roku — you simply want to use a workaround. We’ll present you ways.

The advantages of utilizing a VPN

When it comes to streaming, a VPN has one major profit: altering your IP deal with. A VPN tunnels your connection by way of its servers to obfuscate your IP, making it seem to be you’re watching from elsewhere. As a outcome, a service like Netflix will see your location as, say, the United Kingdom versus the US. You’ll then have entry to a totally different set of programming. For instance, the TV present Friends is out there on Max within the US, but it surely’s solely out there on Netflix within the UK.

VPNs have a number of different advantages associated to privateness and safety. VPN servers have military-grade AES 256-bit encryption, that means they’re safer than connecting to the Internet usually. So, because you’re searching the Internet by tunneling by way of the VPN, your Internet service supplier can’t see all your searching locations (and promote your viewing habits to knowledge brokers).

The easiest method to use a VPN on Roku

Although Roku doesn’t natively help VPNs, there are a few workarounds. You can, for example, set up a VPN on your home’s router. That permits you to shield the entire community and each machine that connects to it, holding everybody in your family nameless on-line. But it might additionally trigger confusion whenever you need to entry native companies — and it requires a very high-level of technical data, and solely works with sure routers.

Instead, we advocate a far simpler methodology: connecting a VPN to your Roku through AirPlay or screencast. To do that, subscribe to a VPN and set up it on your smartphone or laptop computer. Then, stream content material on that machine and AirPlay or screencast it to your Roku TV. The icon to do that ought to appear to be a TV with Wi-Fi rays.

We choose this methodology as a result of it’s easier total. You can entry any geo-blocked content material on your smartphone or laptop computer first after which solid it on your good TV.

You can be certain your Roku mannequin is AirPlay-compatible by checking this resource on Roku’s site. If it isn’t, you’ll be able to all the time simply instantly patch your cellphone or laptop computer to the TV utilizing an HDMI cable or an appropriate dongle.