As above.

Have stopped subscribing to Unlocator as Hola works just fine at home.

Currently in Italy and want to download a few BBC radio bits onto my phone /tablet.

Any apps to avoid? Any apps worthy of a recommendation?

Turbo VPN works fine for me when I’m offshore and/or abroad.

Bonus: It’s free and claims to have ads but they’re about as unintrusive as I’ve ever seen.

Does Turbo VPN work for tricking Netflix into thinking you’re somewhere else?

It does. There’s a little flag at the top of the screen and you just select which country you want to be in and away you go.

Lovely. And it works with the Netflix app, or just using it through a browser?

ExpressVPN works really well. Been using it for a couple.of weeks in China .

I use VPN unlimited By keepsolid. Bought it on recommendation from here. Got a lifetime subscription for pennies in an offer.

Works really well and is very easy to set up.

Just noticed ExpressVPN do a referral scheme as well

It’s worth taking in some extra information if you use free VPNs, especially Hola.

https://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/alert-hola-vpn-putting-you-danger.html

The Dark Side of Free VPNs: What You Need to Know

VPN Monster is good for free.

Paid wise I’m currently using Nord VPN and it’s very good.

Loads out there and if they work they work!

I’ve tried various VPNs over the years. It’s always a game of whack-a-mole with the BBC so as they identify and block certain VPNs, you generally need to move to a different provider…so, don’t buy long term membership as you may find it doesn’t work and you need to swap providers.

It’s also worth checking how much data they retain if you’re doing something naughty…

I tried several, and also researched thoroughly to find one that was credible and trustworthy.

Ended up with Cyberghost. There was several others I liked when I tried but main feature that Cyberghost had that others lacked was the ability to save settings for different networks, so the VPN automatically comes on when I am on my work network but is off at home.

I’ve tried various VPNs over the years. It’s always a game of whack-a-mole with the BBC so as they identify and block certain VPNs, you generally need to move to a different provider…so, don’t buy long term membership as you may find it doesn’t work and you need to swap providers.

Are you saying they blanket block VPNs, so you wouldn’t even be able to access in the UK?

As an FYI, EU law as of 1st April requires premium services to allow you to watch anywhere within the EU as at home, no VPN required.

“As of 1 April, consumers will be able to use online subscriptions they legally bought in their home country such as movies, sports, music, games, e-books in any country of the EU. Currently, people were often prevented from using such subscriptions the moment the user travels to another EU-country.”

Doesn’t apply to free services like BBC iPlayer though (but they can opt-in if they want), and of course trying to streaming US services in EU is still illegal if not authorised for use outside US.

And then there’s Brexit 😉

Doesn’t apply to free services like BBC iPlayer though…

Technically iPlayer is not free as you’re required to pay a fee in order to watch it. Are the BBC just making up their own laws these days?

turbo VPN appears not to work for me here .

i use VPN robot. takes a few tries to get it to connect but once going its decent enough.

Being a self-confessed geek, I created my own on a Digital Ocean cloud server.

At least I know I’m the only one inspecting the data…

Rachel

Are you saying they blanket block VPNs, so you wouldn’t even be able to access in the UK?

I find that the BBC iPlayer blocks my VPN even when it’s a UK node I’m using, as does Netflix. PIA btw. I haven’t really tried to geoshift with it but I’d expect there’s a game of whack-a-mole going on as markgraylish refers to above.

I created my own on a Digital Ocean cloud server.

What are you using to do that, out of interest?

It’s always a game of whack-a-mole with the BBC so as they identify and block certain VPNs, you generally need to move to a different provider…so, don’t buy long term membership as you may find it doesn’t work and you need to swap providers.

As a constant VPN and BBC whack-a-moler I can heartily agree with this.  The better ones do vary their servers to keep ahead of the game but sometimes BBC (or whoever) go a bit militant and blanket ban stuff.

As an alternative, filmon.com is decent for British TV abroad via a non VPN route.