Use Online UK Proxy or VPN to Watch all British TV

It can be frustrating that whilst on holiday or travelling abroad, that you can’t access the same websites that you can normally from home. As a solution you may have been pointed towards the use of proxies as a way of avoiding these blocks.  For example many websites suggest that for watching British television then using a UK proxy online can help.

This involves using an intermediary server called a proxy to bounce all your web requests off, and if the proxy is in the the UK then you’ll also appear to be in the UK too.  So instead of getting blocked when you try and access British television using your computer abroad, everything works just the same as the UK.  Indeed this used to be the case, however unfortunately times have changed.

First of all, I should point out that it is still possible to access UK television when you’re travelling it’s just previous methods don’t quite work any more.   For example it used to be possible to just find a free British proxy online and use it to watch the BBC.  Anything would do, as long as it came from a UK IP address list.  You didn’t even need to stay connected as the check was only at the beginning of the programme,  after that you could  stream the entire show directly.  This has worked for years however in the last 12 months the BBC has tightened up on these restrictions.

UK Proxy or VPN?

You’ll often find these terms used interchangeably.  If you’re looking for something to bypass restrictions on watching UK TV then don’t worry too much either will work.   The only real difference is that a VPN provides an encrypted connection so making your data even more secure.  It will also route all your data through the connection whereas a proxy normally only affects the individual browser or application.

Most people use a VPN nowadays because of the additional security features it offers.

UK Proxy Online – You Need More Now

Unfortunately, nowadays a simple UK proxy server based in Britain won’t work at all, proxies are easy to detect and will now get blocked. Proxies have been useless on most large media sites for years, however previously the BBC for example had a much more relaxed attitude to them.  It seems now that with all the pressures on the way the BBC has funded means that they will no longer work.

The only reliable method is to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network), which works in as similar way to a proxy but is much more secure and difficult to detect.  Unfortunately VPNs need a lot of configuration and you need a specific account, so the days of using piggybacking free services are pretty much gone.   There are however lots of inexpensive VPN services about which can not only unlock UK based channels but also media sites in a host of other countries.

Here’s demonstration of how you can watch using an encrypted UK proxy called

NordVPN – latest discounts here

As you can see it’s quite simple to use on a computer or laptop, and there are even apps for most tablets and smartphones as well. What happens is that the website you visit only sees the location of the VPN server, so if that is based in the UK  and therefore has a UK IP address range, then it will think you are too. You can also switch countries when you need to access channels which are based in other countries like Hulu or Netflix.

There are rumours that this method too has a limited life span, in fact the big media firms have been trying to block access from VPNs for years. Unfortunately for them, they are extremely difficult to detect and the only current reliable method is to manually identify the IP address of the servers and just block them via a list. However this method is not that effective as the addresses of the VPNs/proxies can be changed very quickly.

VPN/Proxy Alternative for Other Devices

Using a VPN program like this is a great option if you watch using a computer or laptop but it’s not always ideal. Many of us nowadays tend to watch on other devices like Media streamers and of course Smart TVs. It’s obviously pretty difficult to install software directly onto a television however smart it happens to be. Which is why there’s also an alternative to using these programs which will potentially work on these devices. It’s called Smart DNS and it’s basically a cut down version of a VPN which is controlled and operated through specially configured DNS servers.

The idea is that when you visit any geo-restricted site the DNS server will route part of your initial connection through a specially configured proxy server in the right location. Then when the connection is established everything else is routed directly from the target website. This makes it much cheaper to run and therefore the prices can be quite competitive. The other advantage is that it requires no software installing and as long as you can change the DNS servers (which are usually in network configuration settings) then it should work fine. If you want read about how you can use DNS to watch the BBC or any other geo-blocked content then try this Smart DNS solution here.