The abbreviation VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. Behind this is the possibility of connecting a PC (or a smartphone or tablet) to another network via an encrypted connection. Read below what a VPN is for Kodi and how to set it up.
What is a VPN?
A typical scenario for using VPN is the secure connection of a PC from the home office to a workstation network. A VPN connection with the personal network at home is also typical, for example to use unencrypted, public WLANs securely. Here we show you how this works with the Fritzbox, for example.
In addition to such a professional or private VPN connection, a second scenario for VPN use has become popular in recent years: the use of commercial VPN services. Providers such as NordVPN, Ivacy, Mullvad or Cyberghost VPN offer the option of running your own Internet traffic via VPN servers all over the world for a fee.
The idea behind this is that the redirection via an external VPN server ensures a higher degree of anonymity on the Internet. For example, with an existing VPN connection, your Internet provider will ideally no longer see which websites you are visiting in your browser. The websites themselves, however, no longer see your private IP address, but that of the VPN server you are currently using. Since you usually share this with a number of other users of the VPN, it is much more difficult, at least with the usual methods, to trace the surfing behavior of individual VPN users.
Anyone who needs access to German-language services such as the live streams from ARD and ZDF while on vacation can easily get them via VPN. There are tons of reliable VPN providers out there. As a rule of thumb, when choosing a VPN provider for Kodi, in addition to the availability of clients for your operating system (see below), you should also ensure good privacy and the least possible "logging" of surfing data. You can find an up-to-date comparison of good and safe VPN providers in this article, for example.
We will examine the advantages and disadvantages as well as the peculiarities of VPN services in more detail in this article..
Why should I use Kodi with a VPN service?
The Kodi media center offers countless ways and means to play media such as videos, music, photos and more. In addition to playing locally stored data, Kodi also offers almost unlimited possibilities to consume streaming content of all kinds.
Kodi add-ons are mainly used here. Even the extensions that can be called up directly from the official Kodi sources allow, among other things, access to the media libraries of the public broadcasters or various private TV channels.
Especially when using streaming add-ons in Kodi, it can be worthwhile to switch on a VPN service. A frequently cited purpose of VPN services can be transferred one-to-one to Kodi: the overriding of geoblocking, i.e. regional restrictions on certain streaming offers. For example, if you want to watch football outside of Europe via your Sky subscription, you look into the tube. The same goes for countless streaming add-ons from Kodi. By contrast, such blocks can often be bypassed via VPN: If you simply connect to a country in which the desired content is available, you can usually access it without any problems.
If circumventing geoblocking still falls into a kind of legal gray area, the VPN promises could of course also lure people to simply forbidden streaming options: Kodi fans provide add-ons for the media center in relevant forums that provide access to streaming sites enable ripped movies or TV series. At least in the ideal case, a VPN would allow such offers to be used without legal consequences.
At this point we would like to emphasize that using a VPN is no justification for consuming copyrighted material via Kodi . Even if the well-known commercial VPN providers in particular like to advertise that their use makes tracking users virtually impossible, there is always a residual risk. The following applies: The use of illegal streaming offers via Kodi is always at your own risk, even with a VPN service..
Prepare Kodi for VPN use
Setting up a VPN service for Kodi basically doesn't require any special preparation within the Mediacenter. In this article, we'll show you how to install and configure Kodi on a PC or mobile device.
The actual setup of a VPN, however, still happens at the system level. On Windows, macOS, Linux or mobile via Android and iOS: The easiest way is to use a VPN via the corresponding apps for the respective operating system. Practically all relevant VPN providers make corresponding solutions available via the homepages or the app stores of the mobile devices.
Virtually all VPN providers provide apps for the major operating systems, such as the Windscribe VPN iPad app in the picture.
Alternatively, manual setup of VPN connections is also possible. The procedure depends on the type of connection used and the operating system. For example, it is common to set up VPN connections using the OpenVPN standard, which is supported by most commercial VPN service providers. As a rule, the corresponding instructions for the different operating systems can be found in the help area of the VPN provider.
The actual use of VPN with Kodi then takes place de facto in two steps. Before you want to consume blocked streaming content from another country with Kodi, for example, start the VPN service of your choice and establish a connection to a server in the appropriate country.
Only when this is constant, start Kodi and open the corresponding stream. As long as the VPN is in place, using the streaming offer via Kodi should work without any problems. Your Internet service provider neither sees which streams you are tapping, nor does the streaming source find out who is behind the connected VPN IP address.
