I currently use StrongVPN and it works pretty well most of the time on the PC although very occasionally I have to switch server to speed things up. The StrongVPN installer is really easy to use on the PC. I watch watch BBC iPlayer, Channel 4OD, ITV Player.

It's flaky on the iPad and has been dropping out a lot.

What would be the advantages of switching to SmartDNS? What have your experiences of the different SmartDNS services been? I'm looking at Overplay, UnoTelly and SmartDNS.

Ta.

I've only ever used Overplay, and it's been faultless. At $9.95 a month, I have no complaints.

I use Overplay's DNS without any problems on the ipad. I think its about $5 a month. I use Google Chrome on work pc and home laptop with the Mediahint extension added in as described in previous threads here. Even though it says my free trial has expired, it still works even though I haven't paid.

I am using a 40-day world-cup for free trial of UnoTelly, and if it keeps up, I am sure I will sign up at the end. It is more reliable as there is not the bandwidth-tax of VPN. It is also nice to be able to keep everything else the same, i.e. If I want to surf while watching the BBC, I get US sites instead of UK ones.

For just watching telly, VPN is overkill.

Also sometimes with VPN, I get stuck in cookie hell, BBC thinks I am in the US from cookies, even after I turn the VPN on. No need to delete cookies and faffing around with DNS.

I use Overplay SmartDNS for $4.95 at month. Have their DNS setting on my router so the whole home network goes through them to get BBC etc. They even have a setting in your account for you to select which country to stream Netflix from. So while I can stream BBC I set it to get Netflix from the USA.

This is the big reason...no need to slow down the rest of the internet, unless you actually need a VPN.

I too use UnoTelly. You get 3 months free for liking them on Facebook or twitter, then it's less than $5 a month. Unlike a VPN, I can run my iPhone, iPad, Macbook, router, roku and xbox all for that price. It's also far more reliable than the VPN's I used to use. Switching to a DNS service over a VPN is definitely the way to go.

SmartDNS is basically a man-in-the-middle DNS redirection proxy. Which is fine for watching movies, but I would not leave this in place 24/7/365. Man-in-the-middle DNS redirection proxies are used for nefarious purposes, like watching all your traffic to get your banking passwords etc. I'm sure the majority of commercial services are legit, but caveat emptor.

If you want all devices to use it then set it on your router, but have your devices only use your router for DNS when you want to watch your UK telly, at other times manually set your device DNS to use your ISP or other 'trusted' DNS server.

Incidentally, some ISPs use their own man-in-the-middle DNS redirection proxy service to presumably market stuff to you and inject their own ads; in which case SmartDNS will not work.

Wutopia also rock solid too

Thanks, just coming back to this thread and some great info.

Just wanted to belatedly say that I finally switched to Unotelly, and it's so so much easier than using VPN. You just switch the PC on and go straight to BBC iplayer or whatever and you can watch stuff. No faffing about starting up the VPN, and no having to switch servers when one has slowed down.

Thanks for the suggestions.

In the following thread, it explains why SmartDNS should be much faster then VPN since only authentication packets go though the SmartDNS server and all other packets are direct to and from the web site. Therefore once you are authenticated to a web site, traffic is just like any direct connection and the performance will only depend the speed of your connection, the speed of the internet, and the speed of the web site.

http://britishexpats.com/forum/trail.../#post11334708

I use ZenMate for Chrome, it's free and I've never had any problems with it.

Only problem is BBC iPlayer inspects every packet for geo-location now.

Yep, there's comparason between a VPN service and UnoTelly. A smart DNS service is way better for watching good quality streams back home. I used to buffer quite a bit watching the iPlayer with a VPN. I often had to download a show first which would take forever. With UnoTelly, no problem streaming stuff and downloading takes a couple of minutes. Don't forget, you can up to 3 months free just by tweeting or liking their page on Facebook (used to be 6 months free, grrrrr)