The best thing about an Amazon Fire TV Stick is that you can take your whole telly setup with you. Plug it into a hotel TV or Airbnb screen, and you’ve instantly transformed that locked-up TV into one with every streaming service under the sun, exactly as if you were watching TV back at home.
The problem? Some UK streaming apps don’t work when you’re abroad. BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4 and Now can all detect when you’re no longer in the UK, meaning your Fire Stick suddenly becomes redundant and you can’t catch up on Love Island or the Premier League.
That’s where a VPN comes in. Proton VPN is one of the few VPNs with a dedicated Fire TV Stick app, available directly from Amazon’s Appstore, so there’s no fiddly sideloading required. While Proton does have a free version, it’s the paid tier that will let you stream UK content abroad. Here’s how to get Proton VPN on your Fire TV Stick.
Read more: Best Fire TV Stick VPNs, reviewed
How to get Proton VPN on your Fire TV Stick
In The Independent’s testing, Proton VPN worked with BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, Now, Netflix and Disney+ when connected to a UK server, meaning we could catch up on content from home while travelling abroad.
ProtonVPN’s Fire TV app strikes a good balance between simplicity and functionality, explained tech journalist Esat Dedezade in his Proton VPN Fire TV Stick review. “One of the main features of the Fire TV version is split tunnelling, which enables you to choose which apps route through the VPN and which can use your regular connection, plus the server selection screens are organised and simple, so it’s easy to find what you need without endless clicking around,” he said.
To get started, you’ll need a Proton VPN subscription. A 24-month subscription costs £86.16, which works out at about £3.59 per month. Once that’s sorted, follow the below setup instructions:
- Go to Find > Appstore
- Search for ‘Proton VPN’
- Click the “Get” button next to Proton VPN
- Open the app and sign in to Proton VPN
- Select a country and click the “Connect” button
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