YouTube is the biggest online video sharing platform in the world, but not everyone can access it. Even among those who can, they may often be bogged down by ISP buffering or region-locked videos due to copyright.
If you want to access all of YouTube, unfettered by blocking or buffering, you want a VPN.
What Do I Need Out of a VPN for YouTube?
Your first and foremost consideration when streaming is speed. Your VPN should be capable of streaming media at acceptable resolutions, with little-to-no buffering required. While you shouldn’t expect 1080p streams on a 1mbps connection (the actual limits of your Internet connection still matters here), any connection 5mbps and up should be capable of streaming 1080p YouTube video. If it can’t, ISP buffering may be to blame- and a VPN can fix that issue!
Secondly, the ability to geo-spoof. A VPN can connect to secure servers around the world. For instance, if a video is blocked in the US but not the UK, you can use a VPN and connect through a server in the UK to be able to watch that video. If your VPN doesn’t allow you to choose what country you connect through, or have a selection wide enough for what you want to watch, then it’s probably not the right one for you.
Third, the ability to avoid ISP-side buffering. In order to do this, your VPN will need to be using the latest VPN protocols and encryption standards: otherwise, your ISP may be able to detect and throttle your VPN traffic, which may result in a stream just as buffered (if not worse) than on your regular connection.
And finally, you need reliability. You need good servers that will keep a consistent speed and won’t drop connection, allowing you to watch all of your favorite YouTube videos, completely uninterrupted.
Why Shouldn’t I Use a Free VPN?
To answer this question, it’s important to understand what goes into a VPN service. There’s hosting the servers worldwide, implementing VPN and encryption protocols, making client-side applications for various operating systems, and finally there’s the cost of maintaining and updating all of these sides of the business.
Basically, VPNs cost actual money to run, and a VPN claiming to be free is making its money elsewhere. If something is “free”, then you are the product. Most free websites, YouTube included, pay for themselves with on-page advertising. Advertisers pay content providers to get their ads out there, so how can a free VPN service make money off of you?
By selling your data. This can be something as innocuous as basic system specs, or as malicious as your financial credentials. It kind of ruins the point of getting a VPN if everything you do on it is being tracked and sold to the highest bidder, doesn’t it?
Additionally, there’s the fact that many of these services are just bad. Some simply redirect your traffic through proxy servers, rather than anonymizing it through encryption. Others may implement VPN protocols, but only obsolete ones like PPTP, which was cracked a long time ago and won’t help you avoid censorship, ISP buffering or much of anything else.
Basically, a free VPN cannot guarantee safety or speed. So don’t bother. Instead, read on and take a look at our recommended VPNs for YouTube.
The Contenders
Here are our recommended VPNs for YouTube.
Winner: ExpressVPN
- Bypass Censorship: Yes
- YouTube In Other Countries: Yes
- Streaming-Capable: Yes
Our winner is ExpressVPN, for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, it’s the fastest of all the options on this list, meaning that you should be able to watch YouTube videos in resolutions as high as 4K, if your unaltered Internet connection has the bandwidth to handle it.
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It’s not just the fastest, either; ExpressVPN also does everything else that you need or want a VPN service to do. Need a VPN because your ISP throttles YouTube-specific traffic? ExpressVPN has got you covered. Living in China, or another country that restricts access to YouTube and other websites? ExpressVPN with its encryption techniques has got you covered.
It’s also great for watching Netflix (including from other countries!) and other content that’s geographically-locked and attempts to prevent people from watching it.
While ExpressVPN does have all these upsides, it does have one notable downside: its pricing. ExpressVPN is the most expensive provider that we recommended, and while it is the best overall in terms of speed and features, that price point may be too much for some to handle. Because of that, there’s also other, cheaper options on this list!
NordVPN
- Bypass Censorship: Yes
- YouTube In Other Countries: Yes
- Streaming-Capable: Yes
NordVPN is another interesting option. As you can probably gather from the above bullet points, it hits all the points that we want out of a VPN for this purpose: the ability to get past China’s censorship, the ability to watch other country’s YouTube, and the speed to be streaming-capable.
Sign up for a two-year contract with NordVPN and get an incredible 72% discount, just $3.29 a month! Each plan is backed by NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee, so there’s no risk to try it out.
So, what’s the downside? Well, speed. It’s slower than ExpressVPN across the board, and trades blows with IPVanish on occasion but is generally a bit slower. It’s also a bit more expensive than IPVanish, despite being slower, but does so in trade for full censorship-dodging capabilities.
So, is NordVPN right for you?
If you need to use a VPN to dodge censorship, NordVPN is hard to beat. Otherwise, you’ll probably care more about speed, which is executed much better by ExpressVPN (for more money) and by IPVanish (for less money).
If you are based in a country with heavy Internet censorship and can’t afford ExpressVPN, however, NordVPN is a great option.
IPVanish
- Bypass Censorship: No
- YouTube In Other Countries: Yes
- Streaming-Capable: Yes
IPVanish is a VPN with great speeds, but poorer circumvention capabilities. IPVanish cannot bypass China’s censorship, nor can it fool stricter services like Netflix into allowing you to watch your favorite content on them. However, it’s still capable of bypassing YouTube’s country-locked YouTube videos, and offers streaming speeds that are only second to ExpressVPN.
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IPVanish’s great streaming speed actually makes it our top pick for Kodi streaming. If you use Kodi to stream your favorite movies and TV shows, IPVanish is our top recommendation! It being great for YouTube as well is just the cherry on top.
Versus ExpressVPN, IPVanish trades off censorship circumvention for a lower price and similar speeds. Versus the other, cheaper options on this list, it trades off the censorship circumvention for much higher speeds.
VyprVPN
- Bypass Censorship: Yes
- YouTube In Other Countries: Yes
- Streaming-Capable: Yes
VyprVPN is the cheapest VPN on this list, but does what’s needed. It has speeds sufficient for HD streaming, it can watch YouTube videos locked to other countries, and it’s capable of bypassing heavy-duty, state-sponsored censorship.
Sign up with VyprVPN today and get 50% off your first month of service. You can also take advantage of the free three-day trial to test the VPN out before signing up!
Like NordVPN, however, it trades these features for slower speeds. It’s the slowest VPN service on this list, and the slowest we’re willing to recommend for this particular usage scenario, but is still more than sufficient for HD streaming. Because of that, it still deserves a place on this list. The fact that it’s so much cheaper than the other options on this list may actually make it one of the best options!
Which One is Right for Me?
For the ultimate budget solution to YouTube VPNs, VyprVPN is a great option. It offers all the basic features you need, and while not as fast as the other options, should be fast enough for basic HD streaming.
If you’re willing to shell out a bit more cash and don’t need to bypass state-sponsored censorship, IPVanish is another great option. Its speed is almost good enough to rival ExpressVPN’s, and that’s great for HD streaming and maybe even higher resolutions, if your connection can handle it.
Our overall winner, is ExpressVPN. for purposes of streaming, it doest everything right, with exceptional speeds that don’t sacrifice on security. The only sacrifice is the higher price.
Finally, if you need to get past censorship and want to find a middle-ground between ExpressVPN and VyprVPN, there’s NordVPN. NordVPN isn’t as fast as ExpressVPN and trades with IPVanish, but still manages to bypass state-sponsored censorship and do everything you need a streaming VPN to do.
Conclusion
Ultimately, which of these you go with depends on what you want and need. We believe there’s a valid reason for choosing any one of these, though, so comment below and tell us- which is the right one for you?
Read Best VPN For YouTube – How to Unblock YouTube Videos Anywhere by Chris Harper on AddictiveTips - Tech tips to make you smarter
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