UK VPN Free Trial – Yes They do Still Exist !

There are lots of VPN services available now but there’s certainly been some significant changes in the industry over the last few years. Whatever you need a VPN for, whether it’s for security features or you just want to change your IP address to watch a TV site.  Your primary needs will determine which sort of VPN provider you need, there’s actually a significant difference between the IP VPN address supplied by each service. There’s a certain amount of distinction between security focused providers and those who are clearly targeting bypassing geo-targeting on big media sites like the BBC iPlayer and Netflix.

Of course, the simplest way to find out if a VPN works well is to try it out.  However there’s a lot of choice and most of the VPNs charge quite a lot for short subscriptions preferring to offer great deals on long subscriptions like two and three years.  In an ideal world the answer would be a VPN free trial but over the last few years these have gradually disappeared.  Much of the reason is abuse, many people used the VPNs with free trials for nefarious purposes – mainly hacking and spamming. With no trace backs and identification required these were ideal – the trial users had no intention of converting their VPN free trial to paid subscription either.

They’ve now virtually disappeared replaced instead with money back options and guarantees, where you have to almost always have to supply a credit card and then trust that your money  will be refunded if it’s not suitable.   However there are a couple who still do offer a chance to try out without payment and even one of the best VPN companies too.

The Best VPNs with Free Trials are Here (well there’s only one!)

If you want to test out for yourself, this is the best free trial available, it’s currently a 14 day trials too and what’s more it even works with Netflix.  If you want to see how it works, scroll down to the video at the bottom of the page – it’s as easy to use as something like NordVPN too.

They’re called Smart DNS Proxy and have actually been around for many years.  They offer two key products both which are included in the free trial package – Smart DNS and a traditional VPN.   Smart DNS is actually a technology which allows you to bypass geo-restrictions on popular sites like BBC iPlayer and Netflix.  There’s no software involved you simply change your device’s DNS setting and enable your account.  It means that you can get it working on virtually any device including games consoles, media streamer and smart TVs plus on phone and laptops too.

It’s an ideal product for those who just want to stream media from a normally blocked website.  I usually use it on my laptop and Nvidia Shield to watch the BBC iPlayer when abroad.

Choosing the Right Type of VPN Provider

For most customers, there’s two primary reasons for investing in a VPN – the privacy/confidential aspect and the ability to use it to watch things like BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Netflix and blocked YouTube videos

There is some crossover, most of the ‘serious’ VPN providers connections will obviously unlock many of these entertainment sites. This is because they are less of a target than the mainstream entertainment VPN and DNS services, so tend to get ignored. Certainly if your primary concern is a secure encrypted connection with the added facility of bypassing geo-blocks they’re often the better option. Whereas if you’re not bothered about security or encryption then one of the TV watching type VPNs or Smart DNS systems will suit you better.

Indeed it may be that for those who just want to watch things like Hulu and the BBC iPlayer then you might be wise to disregard the VPN completely. One of the drawbacks of using a VPN is that it routes your entire connection through the VPN server which when streaming video can slow your connection down substantially. Consider that the entire video stream is routed from the origin via this third party server then to your client – there’s inevitably going to be some drop in speed. Normally this depends on the cost of the VPN service, the cheaper ones will load more clients onto each server and will usually be a lot slower than the slightly more expensive ones.

For streaming video, especially to devices other than a computer or laptop you may find Smart DNS works better. This is because only a small part of your connection is routed through the target country, literally enough only to hide your location. The rest is then streamed directly to your computer meaning you should get your full connection throughput.

Best of Both Worlds – UK VPN Free Trial

So let’s assume that your primary aim is to watch UK Television from abroad, you may need the occasional VPN service to check your email or online banking on the move too. Smart DNS requires no software and a few of the services offer a VPN service included in the package.

So here’s the one mentioned above and the one I primarily use for my TV watching –

As you can see it’s relatively simple to set up on a computer or laptop. On any other device you just need to find the network connection settings and modify the DNS servers to the ‘Smart ones’. If you want the changes to affect your entire network you just need to change the DNS servers on your router or modem. In this case all your devices will be routed through the Smart DNS servers and will be unlocked to all sites. Remember this method offers no security or protection at all, it’s simply a method to bypass geo-blocks operated by sites like the BBC.

As mentioned there is a VPN service included in the package at no extra costs and it’s something you can test in the trail too. You can use the VPN free trial download and the Smart DNS service on any devices you want for up to 14 days. It’s plenty enough time to try it out properly and see if it unlocks the sites you need. It’s quite unusual for a firm to offer such a lengthy free period nowadays, there’s very few who even offer a VPN trial 7 days at maximum.

Again I’d be cautious about relying on the VPN for too long because too many free trial users will affect the speed. It’s not such an issue as using Smart DNS as the VPN servers are not really used that much as explained earlier in the post. In general for security it’s best to pay a little more if it’s important to you, the only free VPN programs that are available are highly insecure and actually share your connection with other users.  Having someone else using your internet connection in exchange for a free VPN is not something I’d advise.

So if you’re feeling isolated from your favorite UK TV channels and want to try something out – Smart DNS Proxy is definitely worth a try. I personally tried it out expecting the worse but I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t use the free VPN client that comes with it and pay for another solution. However for watching British TV stations like the BBC and ITV then their Smart DNS solution is hard to beat and it’s one of the cheapest available too.

Another huge plus factor for this Smart DNS company is the ability to route your Netflix account to the USA version irrespective of your actual location. The US version is fantastic and has loads more films than most other versions of Netflix. There are very few companies who are able to support Netflix now because in 2017 they started blocking access to commercial IP addresses. This meant that 99% of all the VPN services in the USA were instantly blocked. This is one of the few solutions which supports the residential IP addresses that Netflix needs.

So give them a go, you’ve got 14 days to try it out with absolutely no obligation. The best UK VPN Service free trial currently available, just click the graphic to get started.