Best VPNs for Android TV

Surfshark provides a dedicated TV app from Google Play, which means you can quickly download it directly onto your device. Logging into the app was easy as we just needed to scan a QR code using our phone. PrivateVPN, IPVanish, and many other VPNs force you to manually enter your account details, which was a pain to do while using a TV remote.

The left half of the screen allows you to quickly choose a VPN server location and the right half shows the connection status. We prefer this to VPN apps, like ExpressVPN, that require you to click through to another screen to change server location.

One downside is that the app requires a lot of scrolling, which was frustrating while using our TV’s remote.

For example, the three options at the top of the screen of ‘Quick-connect’, ‘Fastest location’, and ‘Nearest country’ perform the same function and always connected us to the exact same server. We’d prefer it if two of these three options were removed and that space was used more efficiently.

Surfshark consistently unblocked all of the popular streaming services, including US Netflix, Prime Video, Max, and Disney+. It also offers servers in 100 countries, which means you’ll almost certainly be able to get a compatible IP address for the platform you want to access.

However, on some occasions, we did need to connect to a different server to access a streaming service. We wish that the VPN would automatically connect you to a streaming-optimized server, like NordVPN does, rather than making you choose a specific city.

Surfshark’s performance is disappointing when contrasted against NordVPN and ExpressVPN. We recorded an average download speed loss of 17% when connected to servers in other countries, which is 2Mbps slower than ExpressVPN and 3Mbps slower than NordVPN.

That said, Surfshark was always fast enough to access geo-blocked content on our Google TV device in high resolution without buffering, and should be for you if you have a baseline download speed of above 30Mbps.

Surfshark is the only VPN to provide a kill switch on its Android TV app, which put us at ease when using the VPN to stream Kodi add-ons on our Google TV box. We were also able to switch between secure and trusted protocols, like WireGuard with ChaCha20 encryption, and OpenVPN with AES-256 encryption.

Like most other top Google TV VPNs, the app allows you to enable its ad and tracker blocker, as well as set up split tunneling. One frustration we had was that when setting up which apps to exclude from the VPN tunnel, we couldn’t hide system apps. As a result, we had to scroll through hundreds of apps until we could reach YouTube to exclude it.

Surfshark provides excellent value on a long-term basis, costing just $2.29 per month on a 2-year plan. However, it’s a lot more expensive if you choose to pay monthly, which costs Y per month.

Though it doesn’t offer a permanently free version, the VPN offers a seven-day free trial if you sign up on iOS, Android and Mac, or a 30-day free trial via the service’s 100% money-back guarantee.

ExpressVPN’s dedicated app is the most intuitive and easiest to use of all that we tested. It’s available from Google Play, so you won’t have to download an APK file or sideload it.

Previously, we criticized its Android TV app for not being optimized for large screen devices and for not making it clear which UI element was selected at any time. Thankfully, due to an app update in December 2023, most of these concerns have been addressed.

The app is now well-designed and features large buttons and text, which makes it easier to read and navigate on a TV screen. However, there’s no option to use the app in light mode, which we’d like to see added as an option.

We particularly loved the ability to pin shortcuts to streaming apps from the ExpressVPN home screen. This made it easy to quickly jump to the service we wanted to access whenever we changed server location. This is particularly useful for its Android TV app, as the OS doesn’t support a quick-switching app feature.

ExpressVPN is the very best VPN you can get for streaming. Our tests found that it’s able to access geo-restricted streaming apps from 106 countries. Using it, we were able to watch content from 18 Netflix libraries, Disney+, Max, ITVX, and many more.

The one frustration we’ve encountered is that ExpressVPN’s default US server location doesn’t work with US Netflix. This was frustrating on Google TV, as whenever an app blocked us from accessing it, we had to clear the cache from the device’s settings and restart the device, which often took as long as five minutes.

While connected to ExpressVPN servers using its proprietary Lightway protocol, we’ve always recorded speeds fast enough for streaming in the highest resolution. For most streaming apps, you need a download speed of 5Mbps or higher to steam content in Full HD (1080p) or 15Mbps or higher for 4K content.

During our tests, we recorded an average download speed of 85Mbps while connected to servers in different countries, which is just a 15% drop from our baseline speed.

ExpressVPN is a highly-secure and private VPN, encrypting all traffic using AES-256. It also has a private logging policy that has been independently audited several times. Its Google TV app also includes a range of technical features, including an ad and malware blocker. However, we were disappointed that unlike its Fire TV app, its Android TV app lacks a kill switch.

ExpressVPN is one of the most expensive VPNs you can get, costing $12.95 when paying monthly or $6.67 per month when you sign up for 15 months.

You can also sign up for a 7-day free trial if you create an account through its iOS and Android app and then sign in on your Google TV device.

IPVanish’s map interface and stark green color scheme is less user-friendly than competitors like Proton VPN. We’d prefer if it looked more like its tvOS app, which features a lighter and simpler interface and doesn’t feature the map element.

That said, we did appreciate that it’s the only VPN app we used with a pure black background, which looked excellent on our Sony OLED. Other VPNs, like NordVPN and ExpressVPN, use a dark gray background instead.

Disappointingly, unlike competitors that simplify the login process using QR codes, IPVanish requires manual entry using the TV remote, which can be time-consuming and frustrating.

From the home screen, you can quickly connect to the nearest server or view other locations by clicking the bottom-left icon. While countries are listed alphabetically, this can delay connection times to popular locations like the US. However, the server favoriting feature can mitigate this issue.

IPVanish isn’t as effective as ExpressVPN, Surfshark, or many other top VPNs for bypassing geo-blocks on streaming services. Though it could access US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, and Hulu in our tests, we were blocked from streaming UK Netflix, Prime Video, Max, and Hotstar.

IPVanish is the second-fastest VPN of all 62 VPNs. On average, we recorded a download speed loss of just 5% while connected to a nearby IPVanish server, and an average download speed loss of 12% when connected to international server locations.

IPVanish’s security and privacy performance is superb. On its Google TV app, you have the choice of encrypting traffic using ChaCha20 with WireGuard or AES-256 with OpenVPN, both of which are open-source and safe.

It’s also the only VPN on this list that uses a strict no-logs privacy policy, which has been confirmed by an independent audit. However, unlike the Fire TV version, the Google TV app lacks a kill switch. This means that in the event of a sudden connection drop, there’s a risk of exposing your real IP address, compromising your privacy.

IPVanish offers competitive pricing, starting at $2.19 per month for a two-year plan, which is on par with industry standards. It offers a 7-day free trial on both Android and iOS, a perk which isn’t offered by many of its competitors.

PrivadoVPN Free is one of only a few completely free VPNs that offers a dedicated app for Google and Android TV devices. The app itself is simple but generally well-designed and easy to use. To save you time having to scroll through the server list, the app allows you to connect to a server by proximity or by favoriting servers.

Similarly to ExpressVPN, you can also add a shortcut to a streaming app from the PrivadoVPN home screen. We added a shortcut to Netflix so we could quickly access the new content library of the app whenever we changed server location.

It also supports split tunneling, which is named ‘Smart Route’ in the app and is difficult to discover. You’ll have to click the two diverging arrows at the top left to access it. Conveniently, there’s a toggle for deciding whether you want this list to include or exclude system apps, which makes scrolling through and selecting the apps a lot easier.

PrivadoVPN Free accesses far fewer streaming apps than the other VPNs in this list. Unlike Surfshark, NordVPN, and many other paid options, we could not access BBC iPlayer, ESPN+, or YouTube TV while connected to a PrivadoVPN server.

However, it fares much better than other free VPN services. While PrivadoVPN works reliably with US Netflix, the other VPNs we tested, like Windscribe Free and Proton VPN Free, failed to unblock Netflix on any of their US servers. PrivadoVPN also unblocks Disney+, Max, Prime Video, and Peacock.

The biggest drawback of using PrivadoVPN Free for streaming is its 10GB monthly data cap. While the same is true for Windscribe, Hide.me, and many other top free VPNs, we could only stream approximately 4 hours of video on our Google TV device before using up all of our data allowance.

Since we started using it after its launch in 2019, PrivadoVPN has remained one of the most reliably quick free VPNs. It’s faster than many of the top free VPNs, with an average international download speed that’s 91Mbps faster than Hide.me Free and 7Mbps faster than TunnelBear Free. While using it on our Sony TV, we didn’t encounter any buffering or low resolution video.

For a free VPN, PrivadoVPN is impressively private and secure. The VPN doesn’t log any sensitive user data and it’s based in the privacy-friendly jurisdiction of Switzerland. By contrast, many of the popular free VPNs we encountered in the Google TV Play Store, like X-VPN, log personally-identifiable data.

Unlike all the paid-for VPNs on this page, PrivadoVPN Free doesn’t offer an ad blocker, nor does it have a multi-hop feature or a kill switch on its Google TV app. There’s no getting away from the fact that your internet activity is less secure when using PrivadoVPN Free compared to premium alternatives.

PrivadoVPN Free is completely free and only requires an email address and password to use. You don’t need to provide any payment details to access it.