Pandora was a truly unique service when it first came out 15 years ago in 2000. It was so innovative because it turned the idea of traditional radio completely upside down. Instead of tuning in to certain traditional radio stations that played their own pre-made playlists that you have no control over, Pandora allows you to filter out the songs, genres, and music that you don’t like and promote the types of music that you love. Their service is all backed by a highly complex proprietary algorithm that uses a lot of different key factors to determine the type of music that you will most likely enjoy. If, once in a while, you find that you don’t like the music that the Pandora algorithm or radio station (much like a playlist) has chosen, you have the opportunity to stop similar songs from showing up in your playlist.
If you aren’t using Pandora already, you are missing out on a wonderful service. Though traditional radio does have its merits, most people have mobile devices that they can use to connect Pandora to their car’s audio system or speakers in their home. In doing so, you can circumvent all of the crummy radio personalities that many find annoying, irritating, or offensive and focus on what they love the most: the music. Every music junkie should use a service like Pandora, but there is just one problem. Pandora isn’t available all over the world – by default, that is. With a standard Internet connection, Pandora is only available in select countries including the US, Australia, and New Zealand (sorry Canada, UK, and everywhere else in the world). So what on Earth do you do if you want to access Pandora if you are traveling abroad or you live in another country?
Well, you have two options. The first option is to use a proxy service, which isn’t your best option for several reasons. By using a proxy service, you will be able to access Pandora content as though you were connecting from one of the allowed locations. Sounds pretty great, right? Well, there are a few problems. First of all, proxy service IP addresses are frequently blocked and shut down. Secondly, they don’t do anything to protect your traffic with encryption, and if your proxy service keeps logs of your activity, you don’t have any anonymity when connecting to Pandora.
On the other hand, you could easily take advantage of a VPN service to access Pandora. This is a much better alternative to a proxy service for three reasons. Firstly, a VPN will protect your data with encryption and allow you to browse the web anonymously. Secondly, you’ll find that most VPN providers have a much larger network of servers than proxy services do on their own, meaning that they have more IP addresses (and they constantly add new IP’s as well). This makes it incredibly hard for Pandora to block incoming connection attempts from VPN services so you won’t have to worry about losing access. And thirdly, a VPN will be able to protect other types of Internet traffic and unblock websites other than Pandora – so you can browse the web with the peace of mind that you are completely secure. But if you are mainly concerned with accessing Pandora content, let’s take a look at the best VPNs for Pandora.
ExpressVPN – Full Review
ExpressVPN is our first pick for Pandora users, and their service is so fast and reliable that they are actually a top choice for most streaming applications. Though they do have servers all over the world in 78 countries, you are going to need a US-based IP address to access Pandora – and ExpressVPN has tons of capacity in the US. Furthermore, their service is well-rounded and they just do so many things better than other providers. They do only allow you to connect up to 2 devices per user account, but they have fantastic 24/7 customer support, a 30-day money back guarantee, and their VPN connections are extremely fast. However, they do cost a little bit more per month than other providers.
Private Internet Access – Full Review
PIA VPN is our second pick for users who want to stream content through Pandora. They don’t have servers in as many countries as Express VPN but they do have more capacity and more VPN servers to connect to. PIA has over 3096 VPN servers in 24 countries, but they have some key advantages over Express VPN. First of all, they will let you connect up to 5 devices with a single account. Secondly, they are cheaper than just about every other VPN service when you get a 1-year subscription. Though they don’t have a 30-day money back guarantee, they do have a 7-day money back guarantee – which is more than enough time to test their service with Pandora.
NordVPN – Full Review
Music fans who want to overcome restrictions can rely on NordVPN, a provider known for the high quality of its software and strong security. NordVPN allows you to defeat the blocks that stop you from accessing Pandora and playing your favorite music. This provider is focused on protecting your internet traffic, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t give speed the importance that it deserves. You can connect to ultra fast servers in the United States that let you enjoy Pandora. In addition, NordVPN doesn’t keep any logs.
CyberGhost – Full Review
CyberGhost is another excellent choice for people who want to bypass restrictions and enjoy access to Pandora and other services that are subject to geographical restrictions. With CyberGhost, you can defeat blocks and enjoy your favorite songs and all the great features that Pandora supports. CyberGhost has more than 3000 servers in over 50 countries and it doesn’t keep any logs that could compromise the privacy and security of your online data.
TorGuard – Full Review
TorGuard offers a service that is comparable to PIA in many respects, and it is a great choice for users who want to stream content from Pandora. They don’t impose data limits or bandwidth throttling, so their VPN connections are extremely fast. They have more servers than most other providers as well. To date they have about 1200 VPN servers in 42 countries, and they let you connect up to 5 devices with a single account like PureVPN and Private Internet Access. TorGuard is pretty reasonably priced as well. They aren’t too expensive or the cheapest service on the market, making them very competitively priced with other leading services.
