Leo S.
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Verified by
Adam B.
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Last updated:
July 31, 2024
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(0)
Amazon Prime Video is a direct rival to Netflix. The streaming service was initially launched exclusive to the North American market in 2006, but more than ten years later it has gone global and is nowadays available in more than 200 countries. In fact, apart from places like China, Cuba, Syria and others, the service is available almost everywhere in the world via its own Amazon Prime Video app that is available for mobile devices and smart TVs, but the content that is on offer outside of the U.S. is – just like Netflix – a true letdown for those who want to access the newest and best content.
Fortunately, VPNs help a lot in getting the best Prime content from the American library regardless of your real physical location, as well as overcoming any throttling or other streaming-related problems. However, it’s important to choose provider wisely as Amazon Prime Video also blocks some of the most-known VPN services.
For many years Amazon had kept its Prime Video service limited to a handful of countries (USA, Germany, UK, Austria and Japan) but in 2016 the American brand decided to expand its services on a global scale to cover the vast majority of the world with its content. However, some politically-sensitive countries are still not part of its coverage, with notorious examples like China, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Cuba. These countries are not on this blacklist by chance, however; in almost all cases it is equally as hard to get a VPN to begin with, though admittedly some unavailable countries can still resort to this method to unblock the service.
But these geo-restricted streamers are not the only ones to benefit from a good VPN. Though it’s possible to access Prime Video in most countries and watch subtitled and dubbed content, it’s only the United States that has a library of worth. The rest of the world only has access to a small percentage of titles and often the most in-demand shows and films are U.S. exclusives and therefore inaccessible to anyone outside of the U.S. As such, choosing a VPN that is not blocked by Amazon Prime Video will solve both of these problems.
Unfortunately it’s more and more common nowadays to see streaming services blocking VPNs. Netflix does this and so, too, does Amazon Prime Video, which limits the number of reliable services that users can be assured will work. As a matter of fact, the number of VPN providers that are affected by these blocks continues to increase and as a result it’s not surprising to see that even some of the bigger services are already down and out.
Just like Netflix, Amazon blocks VPNs by adding their IP addresses to a blacklist in a clever method that can almost work by itself: the more popular a provider is, the easier it is for their IP addresses to be discovered and ultimately blocked. This is why it’s preferable to opt for lesser-known VPN brands when intending to unblock Amazon Prime Video content, though there are obviously some exceptions to this rule.
Computers are not the only machines that can be used to watch Amazon Prime Video as the service features apps for smartphones, tablets and more. When it comes to iOS and Android customers, these users can make use of platform-specific apps, as can smart TV owners and those with other Amazon products like Kindle Fire, Fire TV Stick and others.
Likewise, some VPN providers like StrongVPN or ExpressVPN also have their own support for these Amazon products too, with their VPN software properly configured to be used in conjunction with the streaming service.
IPVanish is a superb VPN provider and has been our number one choice for quite some time, and it’s easy to understand why. It has a worldwide server network that reaches more than 60 countries and places a bigger emphasis on American territories, which means accessing Amazon Prime Video’s best content library is very easy. The extensive support for various devices also plays an important role here, since the VPN can be configured to run on computers, mobile devices and even routers to affect the likes of the Fire Stick, Fire TV, and other devices that can’t run VPNs natively.
The name of this VPN provider is a good metaphor for how much of a strong contestant it is in the market, and even more so when it comes to Amazon Prime Video. In fact, not only is it enough that StrongVPN counts over 650 servers in more than 20 countries, but what’s even better is that this is one of the few companies to have developed proper support for this streaming service. Various StrongVPN apps can be found across the different online stores like Google Play for Android TV boxes, other devices running this operating system, or even in the Amazon Store itself, which in turn means that it can run the VPN directly on Fire TV Stick devices, for instance.
ExpressVPN is another VPN service that can run directly on Amazon devices as the app is available on the Amazon Store as well. On top of this, the streaming service is classified as the number one most trusted VPN on the store, so there’s not really a chance of going wrong in this case. For those looking for support of additional devices, ExpressVPN is available for practically all possible platforms, from smartphones and tablets to computers and even routers. The server network is no less impressive, with 94 countries available providing fast, trustworthy connections to the United States and the rest of the world.
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