Are you considering leaving your origin country and residing in another country? Expats may leave their country to seek lucrative employment opportunities in a different country or a better standard of living. And undoubtedly, living abroad can be an exciting adventure. It can make you push your boundaries and explore new horizons. Also, it is exhilarating to meet new people, discover new places, and relish new cuisines.
But living abroad isn’t a bed of roses. It comes with its share of challenges, such as online privacy obstacles. Among other changes, you may have to forego your favorite TV shows and get your daily dose of local news while living overseas. When you try to access the news sites or streaming platforms you are fond of; you may see the access denied message. With everything else changing rapidly, you don’t want this unique challenge added to your plate.
Luckily, you can use VPN service, such as Surfshark, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, NordVPN, and ExpressVPN, to avoid content censorship and stay connected with your near and dear ones back home.
What Is a VPN & Its Importance For Expats?
VPNs are handy software applications and encryption tools capable of scrambling Internet traffic and interfering with standard online tracking practices.
A VPN performs the following changes to improve one’s digital lifestyle:
- Disguises IP address so third parties cannot detect your actual location when browsing the web or indulging in any kind of online activity, including watching the local news of your home country or streaming content
- Encrypts Internet traffic so that government agencies, ISPs, and other third parties cannot track you
Essentially, a VPN creates an encrypted, secure tunnel through which your Internet traffic passes. This secures all incoming and outgoing messages. Third parties cannot monitor your activities, and you are practically anonymous on the web. Also, it lets you change your IP address by choosing your preferred virtual server location anywhere in the world.
Therefore, VPNs for expats augment users’ anonymity, security, and privacy online. Its IP-changing abilities are one of the primary reasons why expats use VPNs.
How to Use VPNs to Watch Local News & TV Shows From Your Home Country?
As mentioned above, expats use VPNs, particularly for their IP-changing abilities. This allows them to connect to their home server location even though they are overseas, stay updated on the local news, and unlock the content library of their home country.
When you sign in to a streaming website or connect to the online channel of your local news, they can see your IP address. The IP address is a string of numbers assigned to you whenever you connect to the Internet. Looking at this number, the streaming website or local news channel can get information about you, such as your geolocation. If the content is unavailable in the country you are residing in, you won’t be able to access the websites or platforms. The news channel or streaming website sees the request is coming from another country, and they deny access.
Here’s how you can use VPN to watch content from your home country.
● Select and Install a VPN
Before you start watching TV shows or news from your home country, you must choose a reliable and trustworthy VPN. Once the choice is made, the next step is to set it up.
Most VPN providers offer a dedicated application that can be installed on your device, such as a smartphone, laptop, tablet, or computer.
It is essential to choose a VPN that not only unlocks geo-restricted content but also offers military-grade encryption and Internet privacy. These features will help to mask your IP address and hide your online activities from third parties.
After the installation process is complete, you must create an account and choose the subscription plan. Please note that most VPN providers offer a trial period with a 30-day money-back guarantee. So, you can try several VPNs before making your final decision.
● Zero in on The Location
Then, open the VPN app and select a server location. It is important to choose the right server location because this can affect the speed of your connection and also the ability to unblock the content you want to watch.
So, if you are an American living in Australia, unlock content libraries and watch local news in the USA by choosing the US as the server location.
● Watch Local News or Stream Your Favorite TV Shows
Once you have chosen the target server location, you can open the streaming service or log into your local news channel and start watching. As long as the VPN is enabled, it will seem you are watching from the VPN server’s location. Hence, you can bypass all censorship and geographical restrictions.
Besides Local News and TV Shows, These Are The Following Things You Can Do Using a VPN:
- Watch local sports while overseas.
- Prevent bandwidth throttling by your ISP when trying to stream online content or play online games.
- Stay safe when you are browsing the Internet while connected to unsecured public Wi-Fi networks.
- You can be at two places simultaneously, thanks to the split tunneling feature that most VPNs offer. For instance, split tunneling means you can protect certain applications while VPN is enabled and retain the usual connections for other apps.
- Secure your online activities so your ISP, government agencies, and other third parties cannot monitor you. This will save you from being bombarded with unnecessary ads and banners.
- VPNs ensure safe access to online banking, and you can also access your bank account in your home country. Since most banking operations are handled online, expats do not need to set up a bank account in a local bank overseas.
So, now you know how to watch your favorite TV shows and local news abroad. Therefore, this is one less thing to worry about when planning to leave your home country and move to another country permanently.
Thanks to VPNs, everything doesn’t have to change!
