VPN for BBC in Europe
Discussion
Next month I'm off on holiday driving to Austria. Want to have the option of being able to listen to UK radio, mainly BBC Sounds. Has anyone had recent experience with a VPN that works with the BBC, as reading up it seems they are quite good at detecting VPN's? I was thinking of using Nord.
outnumbered said:
Some home internet routers support running a VPN, so you can just connect back from abroad to your actual home. So you're not only not abroad, you are actually at home as far as the BBC, Sky, Netflix or anyone else is concerned. This is pretty useful in my experience.
That's interesting, I didn't know you could do that. I've just checked, and my Fritzbox router does allow this. I assume I'd still have to buy a VPN service like ExpressVPN, and then set up my router to use that?.Adam. said:
That's interesting, I didn't know you could do that. I've just checked, and my Fritzbox router does allow this. I assume I'd still have to buy a VPN service like ExpressVPN, and then set up my router to use that?
No, you don't have to buy anything else. You set it up on the router, and then use the appropriate client software on your phone/whatever to connect to it when you're away from home. There's a few ways of doing it, and it can be a bit fiddly to get going, but I'm sure there's some YT tutorials out there for the Fritzbox..Adam. said:
Next month I'm off on holiday driving to Austria. Want to have the option of being able to listen to UK radio, mainly BBC Sounds. Has anyone had recent experience with a VPN that works with the BBC, as reading up it seems they are quite good at detecting VPN's? I was thinking of using Nord.
As others have mentioned, BBC Sounds works without a VPN in Europe. I've just come back from a long spell in Provence and was listening to BBC radio in the car and in the house - no issues.But despite trying about 3 different VPN's, I couldn't get the BBC iPlayer (for television) to work. Not the end of the world, but it's slightly irritating to pay a licence fee and not be able to access it.... other subscription services, from Spotify to Netflix, all work OK.
.Adam. said:
Next month I'm off on holiday driving to Austria. Want to have the option of being able to listen to UK radio, mainly BBC Sounds. Has anyone had recent experience with a VPN that works with the BBC, as reading up it seems they are quite good at detecting VPN's? I was thinking of using Nord.
I've just got back from a Germany/Austria/Italy/France trip. Firstly lots of BBC Sounds stuff is available without a VPN. I found that a couple of podcasts were restricted, so I tried installing Nord on my Android phone and it worked fine. Really easy to use. Except there was some balls up with the Google Pay payment so they couldn't bill me and therefore cancelled my subscription as soon as the trial period expired, which saved me the effort of cancelling it as I no longer need it. Hurray!BBC use VPN lists for blocking but also block IPs they see many connections coming in from (I don't know the exact threshold). So you'll find some VPNs will work sometimes before they appear on the VPN lists, or until multiple people use them to connect.
The VPN back to your house is the best way - I've done this for BBC from every corner of the world and it's worked every time. As far as they are concerned you are just connecting from you house. The only other way they can tell is if they make the app on a phone collection your location or the mobile network you are connected to, which the iplayer app does not currently do, and you could easily remove those permissions if it did.
The VPN back to your house is the best way - I've done this for BBC from every corner of the world and it's worked every time. As far as they are concerned you are just connecting from you house. The only other way they can tell is if they make the app on a phone collection your location or the mobile network you are connected to, which the iplayer app does not currently do, and you could easily remove those permissions if it did.
VPN back to home is so convenient. For those that don't understand - a VPN is simply a way of re-routing your internet through a box "somewhere else". - so if you install a VPN client (software) and connect it to a New Zealand server then all your traffic will go though that , and the world will "see" you as bing in New Zealand.
You can equally connect to your home router if it supports a VPN - basically you are making your internet router at home a VPN server, just the same as the one you connected to on New Zealand , just now its in the UK, in your house.
Just understand that you need reasonable upload bandwidth at home, as this effectively becomes your download max bandwidth when connecting to the VPN at home from away. So if you have 20Mb down and 3 Mb up, at home, then when you "VPN in" from away, you'll get a maximum 3Mb download speed as that's all your internet at home can dish out to you.
I've got an Asus router and it supports a few different VPN clients, loads of youtube tutotials on it. Very easy. I enabled "Open VPN" on the router, gave it a password, then it lets you download a configuration/key file. I instlled Open VPN client on my phone and laptop, and give them the file I downloaded, plus the password and that's it. Turn it on and off at will.
For testing your setup its easiest to use your phone on molbile data, not wifi, otherwise your wifi bypasses the VPN and its not a real test. I went down the pub and tested it all on their wifi before leaving the country. I have found free wifi spots that block my VPN.
I don't watch UK TV when away, but it means I can access all my business stuff, and print orders for my worker. As a bonus I can stream all my Plex media server content.
You can equally connect to your home router if it supports a VPN - basically you are making your internet router at home a VPN server, just the same as the one you connected to on New Zealand , just now its in the UK, in your house.
Just understand that you need reasonable upload bandwidth at home, as this effectively becomes your download max bandwidth when connecting to the VPN at home from away. So if you have 20Mb down and 3 Mb up, at home, then when you "VPN in" from away, you'll get a maximum 3Mb download speed as that's all your internet at home can dish out to you.
I've got an Asus router and it supports a few different VPN clients, loads of youtube tutotials on it. Very easy. I enabled "Open VPN" on the router, gave it a password, then it lets you download a configuration/key file. I instlled Open VPN client on my phone and laptop, and give them the file I downloaded, plus the password and that's it. Turn it on and off at will.
For testing your setup its easiest to use your phone on molbile data, not wifi, otherwise your wifi bypasses the VPN and its not a real test. I went down the pub and tested it all on their wifi before leaving the country. I have found free wifi spots that block my VPN.
I don't watch UK TV when away, but it means I can access all my business stuff, and print orders for my worker. As a bonus I can stream all my Plex media server content.
Edited by Griffith4ever on Monday 11th August 07:52
outnumbered said:
No, you don't have to buy anything else. You set it up on the router, and then use the appropriate client software on your phone/whatever to connect to it when you're away from home. There's a few ways of doing it, and it can be a bit fiddly to get going, but I'm sure there's some YT tutorials out there for the Fritzbox.
Fritzbox uses Wireguard - just configure on the router and install on your phone - works brilliantly.https://en.fritz.com/service/knowledge-base/dok/FR...
I would recommend Wireguard over OpenVPN.
Tailscale with exit node is also blissfully simple, you can even install it on an AppleTV IIRC.
My solution is a linux VM running Pihole and PiVPN (wireguard) plus Tailscale (advantage of the latter, no ports to open).
Everything appears to come from my home (Wireguard on iPhone is on-demand, that's a nice option). And I kill ads everywhere.....
I do have 10Gb symmetric so speed and latency are non-issues.
Tailscale with exit node is also blissfully simple, you can even install it on an AppleTV IIRC.
My solution is a linux VM running Pihole and PiVPN (wireguard) plus Tailscale (advantage of the latter, no ports to open).
Everything appears to come from my home (Wireguard on iPhone is on-demand, that's a nice option). And I kill ads everywhere.....
I do have 10Gb symmetric so speed and latency are non-issues.
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