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sith_ringo
Advocate

VPN with NOWTV HUB and Apple 4K

Ok so I got back with NowTV when I got a AppleTV 4K (don't even get me started with the app although I keep hearing its update is Beta, yet this in turn is years in the making it would appear)

 

I want to use VPN via DNS setting with the AppleTV 4K itself

 

I understand the the NowTV hub forces the DNS to SKY's (don't see why googles wasn't enough)

 

Is this actually going to be possible VPN on AppleTV4K via NowTV hub?

 

Is it possible to request the hub is reverted to a previous firmware that allows this?

 

Apple TV have no VPN apps on the TV4K box, you can however change DNS in settings fine

 

Help me any Obi Wan's , you're my only hope !

 

 

7 REPLIES 7
RoyB
Legend

@sith_ringo 

 

You just want the Apple TV over the VPN, not anything else?

 

What are you trying to achieve exactly?

 

Maybe there is another way - using a Smart DNS service on the AppleTV for instance, as you can change this DNS individually - but it does depend on why you are thinking of using a VPN here.

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
sith_ringo
Advocate
Want to use my family’s SlingTV USA account.
Also and perhaps more importantly privacy & security of my tv device itself.
VPN apps work fine on any other device it’s unfortunate it’s only supported (and legit supported by Apple I might add) via DNS
RoyB
Legend

@sith_ringo 

 

OK, overcoming geo-restrictions then.

 

Taking ExpressVPN as an example, the service they can offer on AppleTV boxes is Smart DNS.

 

I don’t know if you will need a SlingTV app on the AppleTV? If so, I guess you would have to get it from the US Apple Store, as it doesn’t seem to come up on the UK one.

 

Apropos of the privacy and security of the TV device itself, do you think I ought to be considering running my NowTV Sticks over a VPN, and if so, why?

 

My shadowy friend who advises on these matters says you always need to know what threat you are anticipating, where it might come from, and how it might be delivered, to successfully combat it.

 

The other option you have, to get full VPN protection, is to find and purchase a router that can be configured both to support NowTV Broadband - there is at least one long-running thread on here that will tell you what the router needs, and how to configure it (and you can Google for others) - and to support your VPN of choice.

 

This process is not for the faint-hearted, but may be the more satisfactory solution for you.

 

 

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
sith_ringo
Advocate
Thanks for the reply
I’m looking at Express VPN (typically is the most expensive out there but hey)
What worries me is I do go down the Smart DNS route on the AppleTV box, would it work through the now tv router that has the sky’s DNS built in?
RoyB
Legend

@sith_ringo 

 

I use a VPN, as I work doing tech support remotely, for a major British manufacturer. The VPN is to protect them, not me, so only authorised users can reach their internal systems from outside 🙂

 

The VPN runs solely from my work laptop, and the router and every other connected device in the house, including instances of devices running NowTV, seem unfazed by its presence, and may not even particularly know it’s there.

 

SmartDNS is a little different, perhaps, but certainly when we were in Spain, using UnBlockUs as a Smart DNS, we could run devices using UnBlockUs DNS addresses over our Movistar router using the default Movistar DNS.

 

But it was a constant game of whack-a-mole for us and UnBlockUs to keep the services we were using from detecting the SmartDNS and blocking it, so a savvy service like ExpressVPN may well be worth the extra, if they can avoid this for you.

 

Looking at this iPad now, I can see the DNS setting is the internal address of the router. So I think the idea is that the iPad is handing off the load of resolving domain names to the router; but if I were to set the iPad to use, say, just the standard Google DNS servers, let alone any Smart DNS servers, then all the traffic from the iPad through the router would have all the domain references pre-resolved into IP addresses, so the router would never need to use the DNS servers it is set to, for that traffic at least.

 

But are we sure the NowTV router keeps its DNS server settings locked down and/or inaccessible?

 

I don’t have one - I am restricted to BT and PlusNet here if I want any decent speeds (‘decent’ by the UK’s lamentable standards that is, at one-sixth of the FTTR 150Mbps we were getting in Spain one thousand feet up in a hill village) - and even then I run my own Netgear Nighthawk, two BT Home Hubs having proved somewhat unreliable.

 

But some kind soul out there may know if you can get at and change the DNS settings in a NowTV router, and have them stick?

Set a Payment PIN on your account so that no-one but you can buy memberships on it. Check your bank accounts monthly for any other unexpected payments to Now. That way you can at least nip them in the bud, while you and Now figure out whose fault they are.
schnapps
Legend 5
Legend 5

Hi @sith_ringo 

 

From what i can gather you can't change the DNS settings on the NowTV Router.

 

You may find an answer by visiting the Sky Forum, where the NowTV Hub Router is a clone of the Sky Router,

 

The Sky Routers have been around longer where i would imagine Sky have more Broadband customers than their sister company NowTV, where the question may have been asked on more than one occasion on the Sky Community and there may be a workaround posted by a number of Sky forum users (though i doubt it will be straight forward mind).

 

 

@sith_ringo @schnapps @RoyB 

 

Just confirming that, like all the Sky routers past & present, the NOW TV Hub’s DNS settings are locked down and inaccessible via the user interface. It used to be possible to save the config to a file, edit that file to amend the DNS settings and then restore it to the device, but any subsequent reboot would then scrub it all.

 

I noticed all the furore about this on the Sky help forum when this issue first became apparent, but I’m not sure if a permanent workaround was ever established. Of course, the vast majority (99.999% or more ???) of Sky/NOW broadband customers probably wouldn’t know or care what this issue is about, and I expect they have adopted this approach (like they did with the decision to use MER on the FTTC products) for some specific reasons, so don’t expect any meaningful help from the ISP!