If you travel overseas for work, for extended stays with family, or while on vacation you may not want to miss your favorite shows that are only accessible in your home country. The fact is you may have a Netflix subscription or have signed up to BBC iPlayer, but if you’re outside of your homeland, you may not be able to access these shows.
Even if you have a virtual private network (VPN), this is no guarantee of being able to watch the content. Over the years, content providers have become adept at spotting when a VPN is in use and deploy blockers. As you can imagine this is both disappointing and frustrating considering the chances are you are watching shows on a paid subscription.
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So what is the solution?
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Smart DNS to the Rescue
The answer is to use a Smart DNS. Rather than hide your IP address, a smart DNS will make it appear that you are accessing region-blocked content from the same region as your account. So if you’re based in America, and you use your iPhone smart DNS to access Netflix, the content should unlock as if you were at home even if you are in Europe. Provider for IOS you can find at smartdnsservice.net.
This means that you can watch content anywhere in the world, enabling you to keep up to date with all of your favorite shows.
This works across content providers. If you have an active account with the provider that blocks the content based on region, you will be able to access it using a smart DNS.
Does smart DNS Protect Your Privacy?
Smart DNS does not protect your privacy in the same way as a virtual private network (VPN). Rather than sending data back and forth through protected encrypted tunnels that hide your IP address, instead, they make it appear like you’re accessing the content from inside an unblocked region. For unblocking regional content from your homeland, privacy is probably not going to be your main concern.
Source: BN DeStem
Smart DNS for Unlocking Apple TV and Other Services
A good smart DNS for IOS is available. There is a range of providers to choose from. When choosing your provider, read a few reviews, and check what channels can and can’t be unblocked. Some are better than others, so it is worth doing your homework. With this in mind, here’s a checklist:
- Price – Watch out for special offers and if a VPN is included in the price.
- Free Trial – Is there a free trial enabling you to test whether or not it works in countries you travel to?
- Installation – Is this easy or hard? What are the reviews telling you?
- Bitcoin – Increasingly people want to use this currency. If you do, choose a supplier that accepts it.
- Channels – Is it clear what channels can and cannot be unblocked? This goes back to the free trial.
Once you have a solid smart DNS provider, you should be able to watch the content you want no matter where you are in the world. Currently, this is the only reliable way to keep up with your favorite TV shows when abroad. With this in mind, choose your smart DNS content provider and watch whatever you want, no matter where you are in the world.
Differences and Similarities Between VPN and Smart DNS
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As we previously said, VPN is not always a reliable solution. Because of that, you deserve to know certain differences and similarities between Smart DNS and VPN.
Similarities between VPN and Smart DNS
First of all, the technology that both services use is different. However, when we talk about the user’s perspective, you will easily notice certain similarities. As you know, you can use it to keep your privacy and not expose your location to a particular website. For instance, certain videos are only available to people from the USA. You can easily enjoy them even if you are on the opposite side of the world.
In most cases, the VPN will allow you to personally choose a region to appear in. On the other hand, SmartDNS allows you to intercept the traffic to a certain list of websites where you don’t want to expose your location.
These are the similarities of both technologies that we had to highlight. However, when we talk about the differences, the list is much longer.
Source: HuffPost
Differences between VPN and SmartDNS
The major difference between these two technologies comes in the form of protection. Smart DNS doesn’t provide the same privacy protection as the other technology. In other words, everyone can see what the users are doing.
However, it would be wrong to believe that Smart DNS is not safe. Its purpose is a bit different compared to VPN. The technology only wants to spoof your location for particular websites. Because of that, it is important to know two crucial things. Using technology while being connected to public WiFi hotspots wouldn’t be smart. Despite that, other people should not know that you are using it for your own security.
You might believe that a VPN is a much better choice because SmartDNS doesn’t bring any benefits. As we said, content provides can now easily notice when a VPN is used to access their website. Smart DNS works at the router level which covers all connected devices. It allows users to choose which DNS they exactly want to use. In short terms, you should choose to use all of them.
Despite that, we need to highlight that Smart DNS technology has a negligible effect on connection performance. Imagine that you run Internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel. It might happen that performances are overhead when a huge number of people are using the server at the same moment.
To conclude, SmartDNS is a great option for people that want to spoof their location for a specific list of services. Despite that, it is good to mention that they are more affordable compared to VPN services. You won’t have to be a genius to realize how to use this technology. Despite that, you won’t have additional costs to purchase some special hardware. It is completely suitable for the ones that you are using already.
Both technologies can bring certain benefits and improve your Internet experience. However, if you want to use them to the fullest, you need to pick the right one for your purpose.
