If you have a Fire TV video streamer, you already know how great it can be to have access to all the major streaming platforms and thousands of shows and movies in one centralized hub. And watching all your favorite shows on a big-screen TV is much better than watching them on a small laptop or smartphone screen.
But what if you want to watch a show or movie and find that it’s not available in your country? Or what if you want to watch an award-winning BBC documentary, but it’s only available on BBC’s iPlayer – and you don’t live in the United Kingdom?
That’s where a VPN (virtual private network) comes in. Using a VPN, you can unlock geo-blocked content for streaming even when you’re outside of a given region. And here’s the best part: unlike archrival Roku, Amazon’s Fire TV system offers VPN apps directly through its built-in app store. We’ll explain the details and show you how it works.
Choose the right VPN for your Fire TV
For starters, we’ll assume you have a Fire TV device. If you don’t, we have good news: If your TV doesn’t already have Fire TV streaming built-in, add-on devices are often on sale for $25 or less on Amazon. If you want a good balance of price and performance, buy the Fire Stick 4K Max — just make sure it’s on sale for $40 or less. (Check out our list of the best streaming devices to see how Fire TV streamers compare to rivals from Roku, Google, Apple, and more.)
Once you’ve set up your Fire TV hardware, it’s time to choose a VPN — and that’s where the Fire TV operating system shines. A long list of VPNs, including all of our current best VPNs, are available on the platform, and downloading and installing them is as easy as any video app.
We leave it up to you to research which VPN offers the best combination of features and value for you, but a word of warning: except for the first two listed above, we don’t recommend using free VPNs, as they are notorious for collecting your data and selling it to ad networks to fund poorly protected servers. Note that you can install as many VPNs as you want on Fire TV, if you want to cross-test them at your leisure.
Installing the VPN
Once you know which Fire TV VPN you want to use, installing it is easy. Go to Find > on the main menu and simply search for the name of your preferred VPN – if you want to scroll through all the options available, just type in “VPN”. There, you can find the service you want (or one you’ve already subscribed to) and begin installing. The process shouldn’t take too long. Once it’s done, you’re ready to start using it.
Using your Fire TV VPN
Once you’ve downloaded the app, navigate it to your Fire TV dashboard. You’ll need to enter your username and password or sign up to create an account. Some VPNs may require you to already have an account created on your smartphone or computer.
Once you’ve logged in, you can either click the “Connect” button on your VPN or browse the server list to choose which country you want to tunnel to. Once connected, return to the Fire TV home screen and reload your streaming platform of choice to verify if the content is different. If it is, your VPN is working and you’re ready to stream.