Recommendation for VPN for Roku

[Biggupp]

I am researching VPN's with the primary purpose of whole-house security. Which means configuring my Asus RT-AC88U to accommodate the new service.

Yet, VPN's also tout your changing your virtual location to be able to watch shows not available in the US. To change countries in this setup, You have to login to the router and change the country manually. Vendors such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN said this is the only way to do this.

I can't believe this is such a unique protection scheme. Is there a VPN vendor that offers any way to manage this?

 

[L&LD]

There is no such thing as a VPN offering security when you're in control of only one end of the tunnel. And you are always in control of only one end unless you are just accessing your own personal information (between locations) and accessing nothing at all on the 'net.

Look elsewhere for security, i.e. not from an external (third-party) source.

 

[heysoundude]

I am researching VPN's with the primary purpose of whole-house security. Which means configuring my Asus RT-AC88U to accommodate the new service.

Yet, VPN's also tout your changing your virtual location to be able to watch shows not available in the US. To change countries in this setup, You have to login to the router and change the country manually. Vendors such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN said this is the only way to do this.

I can't believe this is such a unique protection scheme. Is there a VPN vendor that offers any way to manage this?

Surely some of these VPN providers have apps/plugins/addons for roku if they offer them for kodi.

 

[Biggupp]

I meant security in protecting us from an ISP et al seeing our online info.

 

[L&LD]

@Biggupp, that would depend if the ISP isn't also an endpoint or maintaining a server for the VPN you are using too.

 

[MichaelCG]

Security or Privacy?
Do you really worry that your ISP is snooping? Maybe they are? What are you trying to prevent them from seeing or doing? Do you trust the 3rd party VPN provider to not do the same? Who is their ISP? Just make sure you are chasing the VPN for the correct reasons. There will always be performance and stability trade-offs to any VPN setup.

As for the ability to change where the tunnel terminates to. As far as I know...this is just a limitation on how VPN technologies usually work. I have NordVPN which I can use on a phone, laptop, or my router. On my router, it is pretty much a static tunnel. On my phone or laptop, I can pick where I want to terminate to on the fly. For what its worth, I have yet to find much value in Nord (or a few others I tested) in bypassing viewing restrictions within the US. The VPNs actually caused more problems for me since even when I was still terminating to the US, HBO and Netflix both prevented me from connecting since I was coming in from a known VPN IP address. That is the primary reason I do not use VPNs for this function at the network layer....then again, I really don't watch that much content online so it isn't something I have put that much effort into.

My primary use case for VPN is securing my browsing activities while I'm outside of my home on un-trusted WiFi.