VPN for BBC iplayer

One thing I have learnt is whilst using any VPN, the time set on your computer gives the game away, set your computer or other device at UK time for the BBC or Irish TV

Absolutely spot on @stevefrance64 , and also, set your language and timezone appropriately.

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Iā€™ve just checked on my PC with NordVPN and there is no need to set the time zone to UK for BBC iPlayer, ITVHub or All4.
I usually watch on a TV with a Fire TV Stick and for that Iā€™ve found it is necessary to reboot and set the timezone on it when watching All4. I routinely remove the TV ethernet connection when using the Fire Stick.
Using a Chromecast is rather difficult unless you run the VPN on your router so both the Chromecast and TV are on the same network. It is also possible to set up a virtual router on Win10.

Nord VPN works very well for us. One subscription used on multiple phones and TV, with no trouble to fool BBC IPlayer, ITV or others into working in France !!!

Iā€™m not worried about privacy most VPNā€™s do collect more than they say.

I am worried about enforcement so far as dodgy jurisdictions like Panama are concerned. The guy at Nordvpn support knew perfectly well their product for which a 3-year contract had been prepaid, had stopped working early in the fully paid contract, admitted they had many other customers who had the same, and yet would not refund or compensate in any way and the "Weā€™re in Panama so you canā€™t touch us"came loud and clear over the phone.

Welcome to Panama.

EDIT TBF, though hairbear, that is how it turned out for me. My comments during most of the first year until it stopped working with no change on my part, and they couldnā€™t make it work anymore, would have been the same as yours.

Hi
Ive used UK Expat VPN for a while and find it works well for BBC ITV, C4. I run it from the laptop at present, but next step is to put it on the Firestick and use that instead.

I donā€™t keep a NordVPN server on all the time. And, based on experiences of five years, I usually assume I might need to change the server and location to get better performance as they can get saturated at different times of day. If you do some download speed tests you will find significant differences both for servers in the same country and between servers in different countries (due to both the servers and the networks connecting to the servers).

At present Iā€™m downloading all the episodes of Trom using get_iplayer. The first UK server (in London) I connected to gave me a download speed of 0.25Mb/s! I switched to a Manchester server and have had a steady download speed so far of about 27Mb/s for the first five episodes.

What I donā€™t understand is why itā€™s stopped working for you, yet for others NordVPN functions perfectly well, Sky, ITV, BBC i all continue to work for me, touch wood.

You need to change servers regularly, and you can have issues with DNS leaks if itā€™s not set up correctly. I use mine on a router, and change regularly.

Would it also be a plus that Iā€™m not a frequent user, still residing in the UK I only use during visits to our French home.

:eek: So that means that when you connect to any website, as well as OS details and browser, it sees your language settings and time zone? I should have realised about the language, but am surprised about time zone. Probably shouldnā€™t have been !

I think some (possibly iPlayer etc if done in a browser) save youā€™re language and time zone as a cookie. This makes it worse, because if you have the cookie, and then change youā€™re timezone, it still will probably not work. You have to close the webpage, delete the cookies and then go back.

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Nordvpn admitted a sizeable number of customers were all affected same problem same time.

Not for me to understand - I pay a VPN to have them keep up with it. Nordvpn hadnā€™t been keeping up with it.

Technology is one thing, but being treated like that when they simply stopped delivering was totally unacceptable

If you ask me, I think that was a customer support excuse. It was to get rid of you. Many people here, with the correct usage, have had no issues at all. Iā€™ve known many customer support bods, and in reality, they just want as easy life if possible.

Not really Hairbear. IME the last thing a tech support will do is admit a problem is widespread unless they really have to. Both from personal and wide professional experience.

I consider myself lucky Nordvpn even admitted it.

The crown was when their solution was to instruct me how to use OpenVPN when I could have chosen to go that way myself and for free. Having not been able to solve it, this was clearly their established routine for the significant number of customers experiencing fhe same.

OpenVPN is not a VPN service it is just a protocol to connecting to services. NordVPN uses OpenVPN as one of the methods to connect to their services.

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I installed Nord VPN on laptops a few years ago and wasnā€™t very impressed at first, as I had to keep selecting different servers to maintain connection and speeds. I have since started using my Nord account with Open VPN on an Asus wifi router, after resetting my ISPā€™s router to modem (bridge) mode. I set up a couple of Nord servers initially, and have got much better performance than in the past. I turn the VPN on before watching UK channels on a Smart TV (Netflix, Prime) or using Sky Catch-up, iPlayer etc., and if network slows down while we are working on computers, phones or tablets then I just deactivate the Nord servers. Quite pleased with performance now.

I use NordVPN on a router as well. Itā€™s more tricky to set up but I do get very good performance and donā€™t generally have issues apart from having to change servers every 2 to 3 months to keep UK streaming services all working. I think that if you use the Windows/Linux/Android etc apps they provide, youā€™re experience may not be as good.

an UPDATEā€¦ as an experiment I have linked the FREEVIEW box to my FreeMobile phone. I get 210gb for 19.99. I am running Surfshark on the phone and am able to get all the On Demand channels BritBos BBC ITV Netflix Amazon. etc so problem solvedā€¦ the question is should I bother with the dish anymore?
In a month I used 180gb watching TV. The only channel that I cant fool on location is NOWTV which I can live without.

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I also download the udp protocol for new servers rather than tcp, which doesnā€™t handle streaming so well.

A quick note to users of Nord VPN: if you have it installed on a router you may be using a very long user id and password provided by Nord to download protocols from your Nord dashboard. You may also login to their web page using a password you set up. If you get an email asking you to change your password, you only have to change the web one, but this will also change your long password and this needs to be updated in your router. Sorry if this is greek to those who donā€™t use Open VPN in a router, but it confused me until I downloaded some new protocols to change the servers and noticed I hadnā€™t updated the long passwordā€¦