VPN for BBC iPlayer and Now TV (etc) abroad

unforeseen

Woodstok2000 said:

NordVPN works with iplayer, sky and nowtv in Europe (as of Nov 2025).. 

It wasn't working in Spain last Nov when I was there. I've found NordVPN very flaky when it comes to iplayer whenever I have used it in Spain. 

Woodstok2000

unforeseen said:

Woodstok2000 said:

NordVPN works with iplayer, sky and nowtv in Europe (as of Nov 2025).. 

It wasn't working in Spain last Nov when I was there. I've found NordVPN very flaky when it comes to iplayer whenever I have used it in Spain. 

Ah, thats strange -  I had no issues with it in Barcelona or Cadiz, where were you?  Maybe one for the OP to avoid if service is inconsistent.

RumRat

I found Cyberghost to work well in the South of France, Italy and Croatia. I have it on Laptop, PC and phone and I've not had any problems with it.

Frozen_up_north

I have just checked the BBC iPlayer with NordVPN (pretending to be in Manchester UK) and it works fine. Previously, I used Cyberghost but found I had to keep changing the settings in order to keep it working for the BBC iPlayer when in Spain.

A couple of points, take a look at Tailscale, which is a VPN designed to create your own personal network in the same manner as a corporate secure network. By using a Raspberry Pi connected to your home router, with Tailscale you can access your own network and "break out" in the UK as if you were at home, the "break out" is called an exit node. Completely free for personal use, apart from needing a Raspberry Pi. Configuring Tailscale is very easy as they provide step by step instructions, I have a subnet running on mine too so I can access my home network by entering 192.168.xx.xx which looks just like I am at home on my local network.

 https://tailscale.com/

With regards to VPN use in general, with some VPN encryption types you might find your access is blocked when using a WiFi as a guest, eg in a Pub. On the free WiFi in Marston Pubs, I find I need to swap to using Open VPN with NordVPN... it is a pain but it works around whatever they are trying to snoop on and I wouldn't use WiFi without the security of a VPN.

unforeseen

Woodstok2000 said:

unforeseen said:

Woodstok2000 said:

NordVPN works with iplayer, sky and nowtv in Europe (as of Nov 2025).. 

It wasn't working in Spain last Nov when I was there. I've found NordVPN very flaky when it comes to iplayer whenever I have used it in Spain. 

Ah, thats strange -  I had no issues with it in Barcelona or Cadiz, where were you?  Maybe one for the OP to avoid if service is inconsistent.

Seville.. 

forgotmyname

Are you using the iPlayer App or a browser?

Showing my daughter how to watch some YT content where it says not available in your country and using Proton

to change the country and found it worked fine in most browsers but not Chrome.  Seems that Chrome's own data

collection tells the website that we are in the UK.

Maybe it's just between Chrome and YT?   I don't have a TV Licence so do not use iPlayer so cannot test it

but try using different browsers.

sausage_time

Frozen_up_north said:

I have just checked the BBC iPlayer with NordVPN (pretending to be in Manchester UK) and it works fine. Previously, I used Cyberghost but found I had to keep changing the settings in order to keep it working for the BBC iPlayer when in Spain.

A couple of points, take a look at Tailscale, which is a VPN designed to create your own personal network in the same manner as a corporate secure network. By using a Raspberry Pi connected to your home router, with Tailscale you can access your own network and "break out" in the UK as if you were at home, the "break out" is called an exit node. Completely free for personal use, apart from needing a Raspberry Pi. Configuring Tailscale is very easy as they provide step by step instructions, I have a subnet running on mine too so I can access my home network by entering 192.168.xx.xx which looks just like I am at home on my local network.

 https://tailscale.com/

With regards to VPN use in general, with some VPN encryption types you might find your access is blocked when using a WiFi as a guest, eg in a Pub. On the free WiFi in Marston Pubs, I find I need to swap to using Open VPN with NordVPN... it is a pain but it works around whatever they are trying to snoop on and I wouldn't use WiFi without the security of a VPN.

Interesting.  No Raspberry Pi here, but I have a linux box running 24/7.  I'm guessing that could be set up to be a Tailscale "breakout"?  Need to get my head around that.

Frozen_up_north

Yes you can use a Linux machine, Mac, or even Windows. The Raspberry Pi O/S is a Linux fork. I have a couple of 3B+ Pies (64 bit OS). One also acts as a watchdog to reboot the router if it hangs up and fails a “ping” test.
I’m not a programmer, but a couple of friends are… as well as Claude AI helping with some Python coding too.

HillStreetBlues

Naming places with a VPN is pretty pointless.
I'm with NordVPN and current in the UK connected to Manchester #1763, even if I was in Spain it would still show I was in Manchester.

sausage_time

Frozen_up_north said:

Yes you can use a Linux machine, Mac, or even Windows. The Raspberry Pi O/S is a Linux fork. I have a couple of 3B+ Pies (64 bit OS). One also acts as a watchdog to reboot the router if it hangs up and fails a “ping” test.
I’m not a programmer, but a couple of friends are… as well as Claude AI helping with some Python coding too.

Set it up on my Linux box and looks to be working well.  Thanks for the suggestion and help!

Won't know for sure it's all good until I'm out of the country of course, but can SSH to tweak if need be.