YouTube is the second most-used search engine in the world, and it is also one of the most popular video-sharing websites. In fact, they get over a billion unique hits per month, and they are one of the top five most popular websites in the entire world. Given its immense popularity, it also makes sense that it is one of the most heavily censored websites. The Internet doesn’t have geographic boundaries, making it easy for people to share content with any number of people around the world. And what may be acceptable in one culture could easily be misconstrued as offensive in another. For that reason, many nations have completely banned YouTube because of messages and videos that have been posted that were deemed to be politically or religiously offensive. Some of the most frequently reoccurring reasons YouTube is blocked includes:
- To prevent the criticism of a culture’s leaders, government, and religion
- To stop the general population from being thrown into a frenzy due to new ideas
- To enforce laws such as copyright enforcement and national security
- To protect a culture’s ethics and morality by preventing discrimination and hate speech
- To protect intellectual property
- To preserve bandwidth from being gobbled up by the intensive demands of video
- To promote productivity, especially in professional settings
For these reasons and many more, countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Syria, China, and several others have completely banned access to site.
Blocking YouTube for Productivity
Though it is frequently blocked on a national level, many nations also contain organizations that decide to filter YouTube content for productivity reasons. For example, you’ll find that YouTube is frequently blocked at work environments and educational organizations around the world. They do this because their employees and students should be focusing on their work instead of watching the latest Internet sensation, but it can become a real pain when you have some downtime.
Whether you are trying to kill time on a lunch break or you are waiting for your professor to arrive, a lot of people are extremely unhappy when they find that YouTube has been blocked. Fortunately, whether YouTube has been blocked for national reasons or productivity concerns, there is an easy solution. All you need is a VPN tunnel to unblock your favorite content. A VPN tunnel will encrypt your data and even send DNS requests to a different server so you can access your favorite YouTube videos. In addition, your ISP, government, or network administrator won’t be able to see that you’re accessing YouTube content because your data will be encrypted. Though they will be able to see that you have established a VPN tunnel, they won’t have any idea what servers you are connecting to.
Securing Your Internet Connection
And this idea applies to other sites outside of YouTube, as well. In fact, you’ll be able to access all types of blocked content without having to worry about anyone watching you online. All of your data communications will be encrypted, too, so governmental surveillance programs, hackers, and thieves won’t be able to read your data. However, because national censorship is one of the largest reasons YouTube is blocked in the first place, we are going to take a look at the best VPN service for YouTube from the perspective of a citizen or traveler in a country that has been known to frequently block YouTube in the past.
VPN for YouTube – Top Picks:
Private Internet Access – Read Review
PIA VPN is a great choice for YouTube content across a variety of platforms and devices. They allow 5 simultaneous connections per account, and they have more capacity than many other providers because of their 3,100 servers in 24 countries. They also have a 7-day money back guarantee, but most people like their service because they are one of cheapest services on the market without sacrificing quality. In fact, you can obtain their service for as little as $3.33 per month.
ExpressVPN – Read Review
ExpressVPN is our second choice for unlocking YouTube content because their service is extremely fast and rock-solid. They have servers in 78 different countries, so you will still have a reasonable degree of flexibility with global connection options, though they don’t offer as many locations as Pure VPN. However, they only allow you to connect 1 handheld device and 1 computer per account, and they cost more than most providers. But to justify these costs, they offer fantastic 24/7 customer support as well as a 30-day money back guarantee to give you ample time testing their service.
IPVanish – Read Review
IPVanish VPN is third on our list of the best VPNs for YouTube, and they are a staunch competitor in the industry – keeping up with all of the leading services. They, like most services, use industry standard protocols for VPN encryption to ensure that you can browse the web securely and anonymously. Also, they are cheaper than Express VPN and you can get their service for as little as $6.49 per month. Lastly, they do a good job of providing access to an extensive network of servers. To date they have 400+ servers in over 60 countries, but they are always expanding.
PureVPN – Read Review
PureVPN is our before last pick for people who want to unblock YouTube content because they offer the most flexibility in terms of global connection options. With 500+ servers in 140 countries, you will be able to find a neighboring country that has full access to YouTube that won’t add too much latency. In addition, they have a 7-day money back guarantee and they are moderately priced at just $4.16 per month with a 1-year subscription. Another great feature of their service is the ability to connect up to 5 devices concurrently with a single account, so you will be able to watch YouTube content on a variety of devices.
ibVPN
ibVPN may not be as old as some of their competitors, but they have grown into a force to be reckoned with. They cost more than most other providers and their service can be purchased for as little as $3.08 to $4.84 per month. Furthermore, they have a 15-day money back guarantee as well as a free trial to help ensure you are satisfied with their service before you make a commitment. They allow 3 connections per user account, which is reasonable, and they have servers in 63 locations in 39 countries.
