One of the bigger features added to tvOS 17, at least on paper, was the ability for Apple TV to run a VPN application. That’s a big deal because folks don’t tunnel their entire home network traffic through a virtual private network, both because they’re probably normal human beings who don’t attempt such things and because routers don’t always make that an easy thing to do.
And the news today is that ExpressVPN — one of the bigger players in the space — is now available for Apple TV. It joins a growing cadre of tvOS-capable VPN apps, which at the time of this writing includes VPNify, X-VPN, IPVanish, PureVPN, hide.me, LeapVPN, US VPN, and Anycast, for starters.
It’s been virtually impossible to be anywhere online in recent years without running into a VPN somehow — most prominently through extremely heavy marketing. That’s in part because VPNs allow you to make it look as if your device is based in some other country, which can allow you to watch something that’s, say, on Netflix in the U.K., but not available on Netflix in the U.S. It’s also because VPN providers have spent a ton of money on affiliates, getting websites and podcasters and other influencers to hit folks where display ads don’t. (Yes, we also have our list of the best VPNs for Apple TV.) They’re marketed as must-have services for privacy, though their necessity — even on public Wi-Fi networks — can definitely be debated. And to be fair, they’re a simple method to do some basic masking of where you are and what you’re doing online.
In any case, the floodgates have opened for tvOS and Apple TV. The VPN apps have arrived. There will be more. Fortunately, for now, they’re constrained inside the App Store, and you have to seek one out if you want to use it.
Subscriptions, available via in-app purchases, run from $13 a month to $117 a year.
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