Missing Sky TV Abroad? This Hack Makes it Watchable Anywhere
Reading time: 4 min
First published: Mar 8, 2019
Updated 2 times since publishing
There are an incredible 75,000 British ex-pats living in The Netherlands, which means there’s a whole lot of demand for Sky TV.
Access to Sky TV is the next best thing to being in Britain, but living outside the United Kingdom’s friendly confines makes it very difficult to have that.
However, when UK ex-pats are living or working abroad and are in possession of a Sky TV subscription, they have the power to connect to their homeward network very simply by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Editor’s Note: We value our relationship with our readers, and we strive to earn your trust through transparency and integrity. We are in the same ownership group as some of the industry-leading products reviewed on this site: ExpressVPN, Cyberghost, Private Internet Access, and Intego. However, this does not affect our review process, as we adhere to a strict testing methodology.
How VPNs Let You Watch Sky TV in the Netherlands
If the answer is no, those requests are shown a screen that says the area is restricted, and no amount of clicking or refreshing will say otherwise. When you incorporate a VPN into your attempts to access Sky TV, things go quite differently. A quality VPN will have multiple servers in the UK which you can connect to.
Once connected via an encrypted network, the remote server will assign your request an IP address from the area it is based in. That IP address will be read by the Sky TV security protocol, but this time will be recognized as coming from the UK, allowing it to bypass security and head for the streaming portions of the website.
Assuming you have existing credentials for Sky TV, you will be granted access and can download anything you like as long as the VPN connection holds.
VPN Statistics in 2019
Not surprisingly, it’s a younger and younger crowd doing all that accessing. 35% of all 16-24 year olds are using a VPN at least a month while 33% of 25-34 year olds are doing likewise. The gender distribution is not surprising, with 62% of users being male.
Best VPNs for Sky TV
1SaferVPN
SaferVPN calls the security fortress of Israel home and lets its reputation speak for itself when it comes to things like security. Indeed, SaferVPN has a kill switch and supports the latest versions of SaferVPN, PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, IKEv2, and of course, OpenVPN.
With England one of the most tech-friendly countries in the world, it’s no surprise that is’ one of the 35 countries powering SaferVPN’s more than 760 servers. Not only does SaferVPN connect you to Sky TV, it also handles Netflix quite well.
The only downsides to SaferVPN are that its customer service is a bit on the light side and its free trial expires after 24 hours.
2Trust.Zone VPN
Trust.Zone VPN is a no-frills VPN that cannot handle Netflix’s tricky platform but can handle other networks including Sky TV.
The interface is user-friendly, supporting OpenVPN and ensuring no data logs are kept. Plus, buyers get unlimited bandwidth with even the most basic package.
Trust.Zone operate servers in 30 countries, has a 10-day money back guarantee, and a free 3-day trial. Be warned that the free trial and the money-back guarantee are each limited to 1GB total.
3IPVanish VPN
IPVanish VPN has long struggled with breaching the Great Firewall of China,but has no problems with an easier task like Sky TV.
What’s more, IPVanish has mastered multiple platforms including Android, Linux, Amazon Fire TV, and Kodi. It has a strong security package that includes 256-bit AES encryption, a kill switch, and IP and DNS leak protection.
IPVanish totals more than 1,000 servers spread across about 60 countries. It can run on up to five devices at a time and as the convenient bonus of unlimited server switching.
