VPN

[Leo]

I've seen them advertised on ebay for ridiculously low prices e.g £2.99 for 3 yrs subscription.

Can these offers be genuine?

No! Anything selling for that price can't be offering a proper VPN service, and is almost certainly designed to farm your data. Remember, you are giving them full access to all the data you send back and forth over the web, and not every site uses encryption.

Be very careful about your choice of VPN, only go for the big trusted names. Any of them advertising solely on eBay should be avoided like the plague, especially so if the eBay price is a tiny fraction of the official one! eBay and the likes are a scammers paradise with little oversight of what gets listed.

Carefully research any you're considering on the trusted tech review sites, TechRadar for example.

I assume Nord VPN can hide from the BBC the fact that it is a VPN.

The likes of iPlayer detect the use of VPNs through lots of people arriving on their site from the same IP address. Some VPNs don't have a lot of infrastructure, so may only have a small range of IP addresses they can use in the UK. A few thousand people all using this small range of IP addresses signals to the BBC that this is a VPN, and they then block requests from that address.

 

[cautious]

I've seen them advertised on ebay for ridiculously low prices e.g £2.99 for 3 yrs subscription.

When I wrote that I meant that I've seen NordVPN advertised on ebay for ridiculously low prices. Here's one for e.g

[broken link removed]

The picture looks genuine. Are these likely to be counterfeit or bogus copies?

The BBC constantly plays whack-a-mole with IP addresses of VPN's to block their access. So you might have the iPlayer working one day and it will be gone the next until such time as the VPN provider changes the IP address to access the iPlayer and then the whole dance starts all over again!

NortonVPN changes my IP address at least once a day. (My IP address is different now than it was this morning). Can the BBC detect a bogus VPN that fast? Can NordVPN somehow overcome this?
I've set my location as United Kingdom with a Northern Ireland postcode. I cannot access BBC iplayer from my tv or direct from my computer. I've used my actual email address *********@eircom.net. Could the eircom.net part be a giveaway?

 

[tallpaul]

But is the IP address being assigned by NortonVPN in the United Kingdom (or appearing to be in the UK)? The email address will be irrelevant. Your VPN should list a couple of servers in the UK (to ease the traffic load on their end). Try a couple of them and see. Another check is to go to the ordinary BBC website when using the VPN and see does the homepage have a predominantly white background and look significantly different than the international page we normally see. That should tell you that the VPN is correctly placing your computer 'in the UK'. If so, there is some setting to change or the IP address is blocked.

 

[Leo]

The picture looks genuine. Are these likely to be counterfeit or bogus copies?

You can't judge anything based on a picture posted on a listing.

NortonVPN changes my IP address at least once a day. (My IP address is different now than it was this morning). Can the BBC detect a bogus VPN that fast? Can NordVPN somehow overcome this?

They're not detecting a bogus VPN, they're just detecting that a VPN is being used and are choosing to block traffic from that IP address as they are unsure of where the traffic is originating from. Your provider will be cycling through a list of IP addresses. Some VPN providers change these more frequently than others.

@tallpaul is on the money with the location being reported for you IP address. The BBC or other sites cannot see what email address you used to register with your VPN. What I can see from the console here is that the IP you posted this message from is indeed located in the UK, but is registered to an organisation that provides network sharing and proxy services. So that is the reason you are being blocked by the iPlayer.

 

[cautious]

Thanks to all for the replies. Much food for thought.

The BBC or other sites cannot see what email address you used to register with your VPN.

Sorry. I did not make this clear. Mea culpa. I've used my actual email address *********@eircom.net to sign up for my account with the BBC. Probably makes no difference.

I am thinking about going for this deal

Save big + get 3 extra months

Save big on our 2-year plans and get 3 extra months of premium online protection on top of your plan. Stay in your cybersecurity bubble with a VPN you can trust.

nordvpn.com

which seems to be from the genuine NordVPN site.
However, I am reluctant to pay £101.76 up front for something that may not work.

Could an existing NordVPN user confirm that they are currently successfully using NordVPN to access BBC iplayer. If that is currently possible with NordVPN I will probably take a punt.

 

[tallpaul]

Have a look at VPN Unlimited from KeepSolid Inc. They usually have very good deals on stacksocial.com. I have been using it for years and it works well with both BBC iPlayer, Netflix and ITV Hub.

 

[gipimann]

I use Mailwasher from Firetrust for filtering email. They also have a VPN product, called hideaway, which might be worth a look.

Hideaway VPN - The Worlds Fastest VPN | Firetrust

www.firetrust.com

 

[kickstart]

Could an existing NordVPN user confirm that they are currently successfully using NordVPN to access BBC iplayer. If that is currently possible with NordVPN I will probably take a punt.

I can confirm that I've used BBC iplayer successfully using NordVPN, just now. It took a few goes though, and cycling through a number of NordVPN UK endpoints before it worked. As has been commented earlier, BBC is actively closing off access to known VPN endpoints.

 

[horusd]

Thanks horusd.

Nord VPN sounds worth a punt. I've seen them advertised on ebay for ridiculously low prices e.g £2.99 for 3 yrs subscription.

Can these offers be genuine? Are there different grades of Nord VPN available, e.g basic, premium,etc? Can I lock my Geo-location to UK with Nord VPN and use a Northern Ireland post code with my BBC account?
I assume Nord VPN can hide from the BBC the fact that it is a VPN.

Thanks.

I can't quite recall the deal I got, but it was for 3 yrs and cheap as chips, but it wasn't 2.99 for sure. I had one problem logging into BBC, I raised it as an issue, and it was resolved PDQ. From recollection, with the BBC player, you were asked to login to particular servers. That process is really easy, and the interface is very simple. Here is the link from Nord VPN's site. https://support.nordvpn.com/General...72/How-to-securely-watch-BBC-with-NordVPN.htm. I have to say I'm very happy with the service. It operates seamlessly in the background. Whatever VPN you opt for, do a check online b4 buying to rule out problems with iplayer. I do know that some are better than others.

 

[cautious]

Thanks to all for the replies. I'm away for a few days and probably won't get back to this until next week.

One more question to horusd and brianb. Can you BBC iplayer direct from your TV with NordVPN or do you watch from your computer or mobile device?
Thanks.

 

[kickstart]

Thanks to all for the replies. I'm away for a few days and probably won't get back to this until next week.

One more question to horusd and brianb. Can you BBC iplayer direct from your TV with NordVPN or do you watch from your computer or mobile device?
Thanks.

I can only playback on the TV if I use a HDMI cable to connect my laptop to the TV. I guess there could well be a VPN client for smart TVs, but I haven't looked.

 

[MrEarl]

A new member joins 34 mins ago and then posts linking to a third party website ...that's either very helpful, or very suspicious

 

[Daddy Ireland]

Cybersecurity a very hot area. Yes Techradar a reliable source.

 

[cautious]

Just bought NordVPN. Watching BBC IPlayer on my computer. Will try direct on my TV (or rather my Humax Freesat box) later.
I suspect I bought a bogus counterfeit version of Norton Secure VPN.

Thanks to all for your help.

 

[Leo]

Just bought NordVPN. Watching BBC IPlayer on my computer. Will try direct on my TV (or rather my Humax Freesat box) later.

Unless your box is connected via the laptop, BBC Player will see your local IP.

 

[AlbacoreA]

Generally you set up a router to the VPN then everything connected to that router uses the VPN. Some people have two routers for this reason.

Certain authorities can track people regardless of vpn and such. They pattern match the network traffic and activity before and after the VPN or whatever tunnel being used. Though I doubt they do that unless you are a person of interest to them.

 

[mathepac]

I see recent versions of Opera include an optional VPN free. You can turn it off and on in the browser preferences. I'm using it now to connect to AAM.

Does anyone know if this is viable alternative to TOR, which has somehow earned for itself a reputation for dark web access?

 

[AlbacoreA]

Define viable.

VPN necessity for hosting a hidden service & maintaining anonymity?

What are the pros/cons/necessity/redundancy for utilizing a VPN on top of TOR if hosting a hidden service? I'm aware of the obvious concerns regarding logging if using a commercial VPN service, bu...

tor.stackexchange.com

 

[ThatNewGuy]

Thanks to all for the replies. I'm away for a few days and probably won't get back to this until next week.

One more question to horusd and brianb. Can you BBC iplayer direct from your TV with NordVPN or do you watch from your computer or mobile device?
Thanks.

I know question a few months back, but no. Only reliable VPNs for this are ExpressVPN (expensive), or Ivacy which I currently use and am v happy with.