We enjoy watching videos on YouTube. Whether you’re laughing at the screen, watching a how-to guide or joining in the discussion, YouTube is recognized as one of the most popular sites on the web. In the United States and many other areas of the world YouTube is freely accessible. While countries like China, Iran and Pakistan completely block YouTube. Fortunately you can use a VPN to avoid geographic restrictions.
How using a VPN can help you unblock YouTube?
Let’s see how a personal VPN service can help you access YouTube from anywhere in the world:
- A virtual private network (VPN) gives to access to IP addresses in the United States.
- Your web traffic is routed through a secure tunnel to help ensure your privacy.
- Since speed is critical for streaming, a VPN can help you achieve better performance.
As you can see a good privacy service will help secure your connection with a US IP address. Giving you access to YouTube no matter where you might be physically located at the time.
Connecting to YouTube through a VPN
We’ll guide you through signing up for a VPN service and connecting to YouTube from outside the US. We recommend a fast VPN connection for streaming videos. There are lots of VPN providers that can’t support the bandwidth necessary for YouTube. Two of our favorites for speed and reliability are IPVanish and Hide My Ass.
We’ll be using IPVanish in our tutorial since they have very fast VPN servers in the United States. The first thing you’ll want to do is get an account. You can sign up for unlimited VPN access from $6.49 a month.
After you sign up watch for the welcome email. Once received you can either follow the link in the email or go to Ipvanish.com and download their client software. IPVanish offers a free VPN client for Windows and Mac. Along with set up guides for iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices.
Once you’ve downloaded and installed the IPVanish client go ahead and launch it. You’ll see this screen:
From here you can choose a server location in the U.S. that provides the best speed. The “Response” column is a good indicator of the best servers to choose from. When you first open the client the “Response” column will be blank for a few seconds while the software pings the server locations. A low ping “Response” time means low latency between your system and the server. Allowing for the best possible performance.
We won’t make things too technical. Feel free to connect to any IPVanish server. They offer locations throughout the United States. If you ever want an IP from elsewhere they offer servers in 41 countries. As a member you can switch between locations anytime. With up to two simultaneous connections.
You’ll notice some options at the bottom of the client for OpenVPN, PPTP and L2TP. These are the protocols used to secure your connection. You can test them to see which one works best from your location. For streaming content like YouTube we recommend OpenVPN (UDP) for the best performance.
That’s all there is to it. The VPN will also help you gain access to Netflix, Hulu, Skype, Twitter, Facebook and other sites. Follow us @VPNSP for more how-to guides along with VPN reviews and discount offers.