Neither SkyGo nor BBC iplayer load at all when using PureVPN (which has been slow for a while) I may try NordVPN.
ExpressVPN works for me presently - Iplayer, All4 etc. I don’t have Sky Go so can’t comment on that
None of them will work for long, you have to set up your own on aws
Is this eady to do on AWS?
I can’t remember how to do it but yes it’s easy! @codfather might help us out with some instructions
I have a subscription to Surfshark for unlimited devices. It’s been working well on Windows and Android for the past 3 months. I wanted it for security as I’m not the admin for our network.
We’ve had the same issues Mat - Spent an hour or so on line with their support chat. Firstly they said it had been resolved but when pressed they acknowledged that they had an ongoing problem with Their French Servers - i told them l was more interested in the UK servers and that others were experiencing similar problems and exploring other providers. They woke up a bit then and have promised to communicate with us direct by EMail and asked for a little patience. If, and it’s a big if, we get a positive result l will let you know. Having said all that l’m sure you have probably gone the same route, so if you get any positive results can you let us know.
By the way l think l’m being followed 
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I have always used TVonholiday. I had it for a few months some years ago and signed up again in January. I binged watched a load of series when I couldn’t sleep with Covid and then decided to keep it as it’s quite useful for teaching too and there’s some good stuff on at the moment.
I don’t find any problems with any of it, except that I can’t get the app on my French tablet or phone. Having said this, I only use it to hook up to the TV so that is not really a problem.
Another plus is that, Michael, the guy who runs it, is really helpful and answers emails very quickly.
Indeed - using the public VPN’s for overseas TV is becoming v. difficult. I would recommend using an Amazon AWS instance and then installing OpenVPN in the UK data centre. As it will be your own personal IP address that gets change every time you start and stop the virtual machine - the trackers won’t catch you. Now - even with the deepest tricks I have tried, Netflix can be a pain as they do deep packet inspection.
Anyway - I have been doing this for years and with BBC it works perfectly.
The real question - is why the hell doesn’t the BBC sell a 5.99 a month subscription to overseas subscribers.
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Thanks Nick.
I looked earlier about how to set this up - for us mere mortals it looked perhaps possible but not easy!
Mat , it’s not as bad as you think. This Video will give you a great start - just set up an Amazon AWS account for free , and then follow these instructions. You will want to set up an instance in the eu-west-2 region - which is London.
Now it is free to set it up - but there are on-going charges if you just leave it running - so you have been warned - you need to keep an eye on costs.
Cheers
Nick
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Thanks Nick 
Warning about Nordvpn. Under no circumstances sign up with them if you haven’t already. If you are still in their 30day trial don’t sign up for anything longer, say, than three months. In other words sign up only for what you can use close to immediately.
I am 2 years into a 3 year contract with them. For the past year again and I’ve found out that my IP address was not being hidden by them. In other words the Nordvpn product wasn’t working when switched on. (even with the dead man’s switch activated).
In the early days I reported over and over again it wasn’t working. They then gave me other server numbers or other features to try 4 out of 5 of which didn’t work either. My IP address could still be seen. It got do timeconsuming I actually gave up reporting and used anything requiring a vpn much less.
Fast forward to now 2/3 of the way through a 3 year contract they locked my account for no good reason. Payment details are long gone as I changed all my card numbers since then for security.
I have told Nordvpn their product is no longer performing to an acceptable standard. Their password reset fails to send reset email. They are unable to reset manually or generate a link manually.
This happened a year ago exactly too no access for two weeks then.
I have requested 1/3 refund and immediate termination as they have failed to perform so they broke the contract.
Over and over again Nordvpn so-called customer service, whose language feels like they in Philippines (a bad sign) or South America, say they keep all money after 30 day trial and won’t refund.
I am asking for their company details to sue them but they are based somewhere like Panama so this would be fruitless even if judgment was obtained.
I implore you try to find a different vpn
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ExpressVPN was liked here too. Seen other reports it’s holding its own tv etc.
I’ll consider them again as soon as I have time to deal with the nightmare that Nordvpn has become “we only have to perform or give you access for 30 days and after that we’ll keep all your money that was paid for a 3 year contract even if we stop delivering”.
I was actually looking at Purevpn as a possible replacement but now very grateful to those who have commented here that it’s not so good.
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PureVPN is up and working again today.
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Ultimately both require some sort of proxy to make it appear to the media provider that your connection originates locally.
DNS based solutions have the advantage that they can divert *just* the media streams and not the whole of your internet traffic, my guess is that they use a form of NAT to get it to work.
You should also be able to limit use of the service to just your TV, so that they don’t affect e.g. your desktop PC use
VPNs are good if you want *all* your internet traffics to be redirected - can be useful for finding English language content but Google is getting better at giving you content that is in the language you used for the search.
Or, as I said, you can use a 2nd router, configured to use the VPN, and run a 2nd SSID - then you can switch between VPN and non-VPN use easily (though be careful with signal strencgths - most phones will “roam” between wireless networks they know about depending on which has the strongest signal, so you might sudenly switch from one to the other as you move around the house).