VPN's are they legal?

westiea

hi

my daughter is at uni in Turkey and wants to catch up on U.K. TV (I know, I am wondering why too!).

Doing a quick Google it appears that using a VPN appears to be the answer. Prices ranging fro £50-£90 a year.

My worries are-

1. Are they legal?
2. If so do they work?
3. Are there any free - she is on a Mac?

Obviously if the answer to the first is a NO then the other questions are unimportant!

many thanks

Westiea

aliEnRIK

VPNS themselves are legal (At least in the sense of the word. SOME VPN providers might operate illegally for example)
Watching UK tv outside of the uk isnt legal (Not that youd ever get caught)

A free vpn is very unlikely to allow streaming of tv content ~ it would be too slow

John_Gray

westiea wrote: »

my daughter is at uni in Turkey and wants to catch up on U.K. TV (I know, I am wondering why too!).

Presumably she thought it was a good course? :rotfl:

sharkie

most likely you could set up a vpn on your machine, and she could use that? Saves on the monthly rental

amcluesent

Yep, streaming isn't likely to work on VPN. iPlayer desktop should be able to d/l programmes over a lower bandwidth VPN over a few hours.

scottishblondie

I've found streaming TV shows thru a VPN while abroad to be unbearably slow, as the video has to buffer every few seconds. I definitely wouldn't go paying for it, as she probably won't have the patience to try and watch it!

aliEnRIK

I think theres confusion on the thread
Theres 2 main VPNs which are quite different to one another
(Technically loads more but lets keep it simple)
One (Of which I believe the OP is asking about) is to pay a company to reroute the broadband to a server in england to make it look like the daughter in turkey is actually in england
Speed shouldnt (If its half decent) be an issue

Then theres what a lot of people on here use which is a VPN between 2 computers to control one from afar

sharkie

aliEnRIK wrote: »

....
Then theres what a lot of people on here use which is a VPN between 2 computers to control one from afar

I am under the impression that making your pc a proxy an then using vpn would work, not sure of the speed issue though. I have to admit I have never tried it.

Does't Slingbox do something similar too?

westiea

Thanks all for that informative info - I think i will tell her to use a free trial and see how it looks.

TwistedPsycho

I would imagine that finding a UK Proxy and using that to view iPlayer, ITVplayer, etc would be a suitable alternative.....

arrallas

A Slingbox is a great solution, although she would be able to change channels from her end, which could be annoying for you!