I have a family member that has moved out of the USA. They have asked me for a way to get access to American streaming services.
They are not tech savvy so whatever I recommend would have to be simple.
I am wanting a hardware solution that would effect their entire network so they can us any streaming device they want.
I am currently looking into getting a preconfigured VPN router that they will just have to subscribe to and log in.
Yes that exists but this subreddit does not allow to give out company names.
Many of the streaming services play a cat and mouse game blocking VPNs, so this may not be the great solution you think it is.
What would help them more, if you trust them and have a good home internet connection, is for you to create the VPN server in your home so they can access streaming services from your residential IP. This could be done with two routers, the one in your home as server and their router as client.
You could just get an off the shelf router that allows a VPN to be configured. A lot of VPN providers offer methods of configuring directly on routers. You’d then be able to pre-configure it and send it to them.
They might not be able to access streaming services while connected to a commercial VPN. I’d suggest that you set up a VPN server at your house and give them a VPN router to connect back to your house. On your VPN server, configure it so that incoming VPN connections can access the Internet only but not your home network.
It’s pretty straightforward to set this up on the pcWRT router: https://www.pcwrt.com/2021/01/the-complete-guide-to-setting-up-a-wireguard-vpn-server-at-home-with-pcwrt/. You can mark the VPN user as a “guest” to prevent access to your home network.
That is ok, the one I am looking at is from one of the popular 3 companies. I really just need to know if they work well for this situation.
This is a good idea I did not think about. I will think about it. I trust them, but I don’t trust anyone they might have come over to do anything on their network. As I said the are not tech savvy.
Yes, this was my first though. My worry is that if I don’t have a good idea of their setup. I am going to visit them so I was hoping to take something with me.
100% agreed. Asus router and flash merlin firmware to it and have vpn server running on the router end user can connect to your router using openvpn software
For hardware VPN? Likely.
For streaming? Maybe, maybe not. You need to find one that says they specialize in streamers.