VPNs and streaming: the honest answer

This is the most-searched VPN question and the most oversold answer, so here is ours: sometimes it works, it breaks without warning, and we will not build a promise on it.

That is a worse sales pitch than our competitors'. It is also what is true.

Why they block

Streaming services license content by country. The rights to a film in the UK are a separate deal from the rights in the US, and those contracts require the service to make a real effort to stop people crossing the border. So they do.

They do it by recognising the address ranges that belong to data centres, which is where VPN servers live, and blocking them. It is not personal and it is not going to stop.

Why it works one week and not the next

It is an arms race with a very short cycle. A VPN provider brings up fresh addresses, they work for a while, the service identifies them, they stop working. Repeat, forever.

Any provider promising you permanent access to a specific service is either promising something they cannot control, or quietly relying on you not checking.

What usually happens

• You get a proxy error. The service has recognised the address.
• It works but suggests otherwise. Some services just show you the local library instead.
• Your account gets a warning. Uncommon, and it does happen.

The terms question

Using a VPN is legal. Using one to reach another country's library breaches the service's terms, which is a contractual matter rather than a criminal one. The realistic worst case is a closed account, not a court. We are not going to pretend that risk is zero.

Where it genuinely helps

The case nobody advertises and everyone actually has:

Watching your own subscriptions while abroad. You pay for a UK service, you are in Spain for a fortnight, and it shows you the Spanish library. Connecting to a UK server gets you the thing you already pay for. That is not piracy by any reading.

Hotel and airport networks that throttle video. A VPN can help here, and it can also make it worse. Try it.

What we promise

That our servers are fast enough for video, that we will not pretend a blocked service is our fault or yours, and that we will not put a streaming logo on our homepage.

If a specific service is the only reason you would buy a VPN, we would honestly rather you did not buy ours on that basis.