The Best VPNs for Sky Go

I used ExpressVPN to stream Sky Go from the US, Spain, and Greece, and never ran into a single problem.

Every time, the Sky Go app loaded without delay and let me straight through to live channels and on-demand movies and shows.

Its Irish servers proved just as effective at getting me in, although my connection held up better on the UK servers over long sessions.

Even so, I never saw any buffering or drop in picture quality on any ExpressVPN server I tried.

That’s a world away from my experience with Mullvad, which took almost a full minute to load a live Premier League game.

ExpressVPN offers the most user-friendly apps for desktop, phones, tablets, and even Apple TV.

They’re all simple to install, but I’d still suggest setting them up before you travel, since the country you’re visiting may block VPN downloads outright (China being the obvious example).

What really sets ExpressVPN apart, though, is how easily it stretches across every Sky Go-compatible device, including game consoles and smart TVs.

When I was staying with a friend abroad, for instance, I used MediaStreamer to get Sky Go running on his Xbox Series X in a couple of minutes.

Unlike most Smart DNS proxies, MediaStreamer is bundled into the subscription at no extra cost, and it unblocked Sky Go without a hitch.

If you’re staying somewhere with access to the router, then ExpressVPN’s own VPN router with dedicated app is worth the money for getting a Sky Stream puck working outside the UK.

The one genuine pain point was faking my GPS location on Android: I had to install a separate mock-location app and get it to match ExpressVPN’s UK server.

It wasn’t especially difficult, but it’s a chore and exactly the kind of thing Surfshark’s built-in GPS spoofer saves you from.

My team and I ran repeated speed tests on ExpressVPN’s UK servers and recorded an average speed loss of just 7%.

This is comfortably fast enough to clear Sky Go’s minimum broadband requirement of 2Mbps, wherever in the world you’re connecting from.

To put that number in context, here’s how ExpressVPN’s UK speeds compare with the other leading VPNs on the market:

As the chart shows, ExpressVPN is faster than every competitor when connecting into the UK from abroad.

In practice, this translated to a crisp, stable picture through Premier League matches, F1 races, and PGA Tour coverage.

This consistency carried over to other British platforms, too. I enjoyed the same flawless quality using the VPN with BBC iPlayer, ITVX, and Channel 4.

Sky Go’s mobile apps use your GPS coordinates as well as your IP address to work out where you are, which is why a VPN on its own often isn’t enough on a phone.

On iPhone and iPad you can’t fake those coordinates at all, since iOS blocks mock-location apps at the system level. On Android, you can.

Normally that means running your VPN alongside a third-party “mock GPS” app. Surfshark spares you the trouble by building GPS spoofing straight into its Android app.

Its Override GPS location setting syncs your device’s GPS with your VPN server, so Sky Go sees a phone sitting in the UK or Ireland rather than one on a beach in Thailand.

Setup takes a few steps, which I’ve explained below, but once it was configured I got past Sky’s GPS restrictions without any further fiddling.

Not having to install and maintain a second app for it was a real convenience.

Surfshark’s 7-day free trial is where it has a clear, practical advantage over ExpressVPN.

You can start it directly through the App Store, Google Play, or Surfshark’s website, with no workarounds needed to get it running on a computer.

ExpressVPN’s trial, by contrast, has to be started on a phone before you can use it anywhere else.

If you want to properly test a VPN against Sky Go before you commit any money, Surfshark makes that far less painful.

Connecting to UK servers from nearby countries, Surfshark keeps pace with most top-tier VPNs. My download speeds dropped by a modest 12%, which you’re unlikely to notice.

The further you get from the UK, though, the more that gap widens. From Australia, Thailand, and the US, the speed loss climbed to 17% — noticeably worse than ExpressVPN’s 15% slowdown.

Distance aside, connections were stable, with very little fluctuation even during peak-time live events on Sky Sports.

The one thing I’d flag is how long it took to connect to a server on mobile compared with ExpressVPN. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it was consistent enough for me to notice it every time.

PrivadoVPN became my go-to free VPN for Sky Go for three reasons.

First, its single free UK server in London got past Sky’s geo-restrictions on every attempt, connecting quickly and holding steady without unexpected drops.

Second, its Android app includes a built-in GPS spoofer, much like Surfshark’s, so the Sky Go mobile app works on a phone or tablet without a second app in the mix.

Third, the speeds genuinely impressed me for a free service: only an 11% slowdown connecting into the UK from Australia, France, and the US.

Like most safe free VPNs, PrivadoVPN caps free bandwidth at 10GB a month.

It’s better than nothing, but it works out at roughly four hours of HD streaming time. One Premier League match, a couple of episodes of your favorite show, and you’re done.

The way around it is to download the Sky content you want before you travel, since watching downloaded content doesn’t touch your VPN data.

If you plan on streaming live content regularly, you’re better off with an unlimited-data VPN like ExpressVPN.