Apple TV is a great device to unify all your streaming services and bring them directly to your HDTV. If you live outside of the US, however, you may face a range of different geo-blocks limiting what content is accessible. The general technique to bypass content geo-blocking is to use a VPN, one of the things a VPN does is change your IP address, to the IP address of the VPN server, making it appear that you are located where the VPN server is.
Tip: Geo-blocking is a technique of blocking access to content based on the location of the user. This location check is generally performed by looking up the rough location of the user’s IP address. By using a VPN and changing your IP address, your apparent location changes, letting you bypass the geo-block.
Unfortunately, Apple TV doesn’t support VPNs at all. You can, however, create a VPN on your router or share a VPN connection from your computer.
Configure a VPN on your Router
To configure a VPN on your router, you need to connect to its web interface by entering its private IP address in your web browser. To find the IP address of your router, press the Windows key, type “cmd”, and hit enter. Then you need to type the command “ipconfig” into the Command Prompt window you just opened. The IP address of your router will be listed as the value of “Default Gateway”. It should begin with 192.168, have a third number, and then end with a one.
Once you’ve found the IP address of your router, enter it into your web browser to access the web management interface. You’ll need to enter the admin password to sign in to the router. Unless you changed it in the past, you can generally find this on a sticker on the bottom or back of the router.
When you’ve signed in, find the VPN settings. They may be listed under “Network Settings” or “WAN Settings” (Wide Area Network).
Tip: Not all routers support VPN functionality, of those that do, only high-end devices support strong options such as OpenVPN support.
Next, you need to find the VPN configuration details offered by your VPN provider and use them to configure the VPN on your router. Once you’ve entered all the VPN details, save the changes to apply them.
Tip: Your VPN provider’s customer support should be able to help you access these details if you can’t find them.
To check that your VPN configuration has worked, browse to whatismyipaddress.com on a device connected to the router. If the location shown matches your VPN server, then the process has worked. If not, double-check your configuration and contact your VPN provider or your router manufacturer for support.
Tip: Unfortunately, you can’t check your IP address on your Apple TV, as it doesn’t have a built-in web browser. You’ll need to use a different device. Alternatively, you can check if a title that wasn’t visible before is now available to watch – that too can confirm your VPN is working!
Share a VPN from your Computer
If you’ve got a VPN connection already configured on your computer, it’s easy to configure it to share that connection to other devices.
To do so, open the Settings app, to the Mobile hotspot page, under the Network and Internet settings. You can open this page directly, by pressing the Windows key, typing “Mobile hotspot settings”, and hitting enter.
Once on the mobile hotspot page, configure your VPN connection to be the shared network connection from the dropdown box. If you want, you can change the hotspot name and password by clicking the “Edit” button. Once you’re happy with the settings, click the “Share my Internet connection with other devices” slider at the top, to the “On” position.
Now you just need to connect your Apple TV to your hotspot, and all of its network traffic will go through the VPN.
Tip: Ensure that your VPN is configured to be in the country that you want your Apple TV to appear to be located.
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