My previous VPN, to which I had "lifetime" access, was taken over by a competitor - and despite promies, my access was lost.

So, for the past 18 months I've been using Private Internet Access (PIA) which was initially good, but then lost access to Channel 5 from any of its 4 UK servers. Access to Channel 4 remained available only from the Manchester server, whilst BBC and ITV were generally OK from their dedicated UK Streaming server.

Then, last week, the access to Channel 4 ceased.

So I contacted PIA and, long story short, they seem to be a chocolate teapot. After many attempts to push the problem back to my usage/PC/configuration, etc., they finally admitted that they have never tested their access to C4 or C5 - and apparently have no intention to try. This is a PITA, since my subscription to them is good until next year

What VPN do other expats in Portugal use for access to UK TV channels..... or is it time to give up and look to a dedicated IPTV service?

Meantime - if you are considering PIA as a VPN service, I'd suggest you look again............

Privado VPN works quite well in Italy.

Doesn't it have a 10gb monthly cap?

Not too useful for TV access.....

It says unlimited data.

That's the paid version and bigger fish compete on price (an offers) - I've never heard of Privado

I have people toutin Express VPN and Nord, but Surfshark and Cyberghost have also been mentioned

Cheers anyway, I'll keep an eye on it

I'm a Nord subscriber, not purely for UK TV purposes, as I wish to access other geoblocked sites as well as doing some other stuff elsewhere.

I have various free VPNs as add-ons to other products (antivirus, email, cloud storage etc), but none of them match Nord for global coverage or reliability.

That said, my Nord gets busted regularly when trying to access iPlayer, the others (all UK FTV) are fine.

I have read good reports on Express VPN, but never tried it.

The advantage with Express is that I know someone local to me in Portugal who uses it.....

My problem is that this will be the fourth VPN in the last few years, either because they went bust, got taken over or, as with this last one, just aren't fit for purpose, so I'm being hyper-cautious

Understand your hyper-cautiousness, maybe try Express vs Nord side by side on trial bases if available? I know that Nord do a trial, not sure on Express.

I get the bulk of my UK stuff (sadly excluding BBC channels + iPlayer) from elsewhere.

It's totally legit and paid for but very reasonably priced imo - I have Sky

The good old days of satellite TV are sadly gone in Southern Portugal, so internet access is all we have

ETA, due to a comment elsewher regarding Express VPNs ownership, I looked it up...... the same group owns CyberGhost, Private Internet Access and Express

Yup, understood, I used satellite TV when back in CH, hacked into a few news agency upstreaming channels, often very illuminating.

The Sky thing I mentioned is a totally legit UK based company - with top class tech support - but as we don't advertise on here, so you'd need to ask quietly should you wish further details.

I used PIA and found it to be not up to the job- Since then I have used NordVPN which were pretty good and now using SurfShark which is also good. I think pretty much all of them lost access to BBC iplayer for short periods, a week or so. I don't watch a lot of UK TV but for live events I watch through IPTV. I did try out Smart DNS Proxy on a free trial and it worked perfectly but it was only a short trial. Not sure if BBC can detect DNS proxies or not. If it is iplayer you watch mainly then IPTV is not gonna be the best option but for live tv IPTV is the best option IMHO but always better to watch it through a VPN.

I have used Smart DNS Proxy since its formation and am very satisfied overall. I have a lifetime subscription of 20 US $.

Thanks Bill, that's another option though I've heard that Channel 4 and Five have dropped out on occsion. At $20 it would be a steal, but I'm seeing a cheapest cost of $80 for 3 years...... Still might be worth a try, though it doesn't offer the anonimity thata VPN does.

I have used Nord for years and have very few issues. BBC sometimes goes unavailable in my region but a quick flick between Glasgow, Mcr or London soon has it sorted or more often than not, a restart of my laptop. I very rarely get issues from other UK channels or Sky and Discovery+.

Nord also works fine the other way round, when visiting the UK I get my football through MEO with no problems at all.

Nord seems to get good write-ups, but after the experiece with PIA I'm wary of US-centric claims - so hearing it works for you for Portugal is the kind of recommendation I'm looking for. Thanks for your reply.