Google Play is Google’s answer to Apple’s iTunes brand. This popular service is designed for users of the Android operating system, as well as Google Chromecast. Much like Apple, the service offers books, movies, music, applications, and more. We will go in to the specifics in a moment. Availability has mushroomed for Google Play, and it is now in over 102 countries around the world. With that many countries in “play”, you can bet the best content is not allowed in all areas. That is why you would need a VPN.
| Rank | VPN Service | Our Score | Server Locations | Visit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  | 9.8 | 160 |  |
| 2 |  | 9.4 | 87 | |
| 3 |  | 9.2 | 95 | |
| 4 |  | 9.0 | 110 | |
| 5 |  | 8.8 | 73 | |
A good example of content being blocked in some areas happened in Singapore. The movie, 50 shades of Grey, was banned in this conservative nation, and Google Play was required to remove it from the Singaporean version. The Media Development Authority of Singapore gave that movie an R21 rating. That means it is unavailable to theatrical audiences under 21 years old as well as making it illegal to be sold in home entertainment stores, either online or as packaged media. The other movies that fall in to this category as well are Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas, The Boy Next Door, and Stanley Kubrick’s movie, A Clockwork Orange. The bottom line is, if you want access to these movies in Singapore, you would need a VPN.
So, let’s take a look at the items offered by Google Play.
- Google Play Music – A premium music streaming service that costs $9.99 a month. It also serves as an online locker that allows you to upload up to 50k owned songs at no cost.
- Google Play Books – A cross-platform ebook application by Google. They have over 5 million titles available, and you may upload up to 1000 books bought from Google Play.
- Google Play Movies & TV – As mentioned, this option is available in 102 countries, but the TV shows are available only in Australia, Canada, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.
- Google Play News and magazines – more than 1900 free and paid news subscriptions, but paid content is only available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom and United States
- Google Apps – Free and paid apps for the Android OS.
As you can see, some things are only available in some countries. If you are in a non supported country, you would be told the content was unavailable. In addition, The cost may be different between countries that are supported. So, whether you are being blocked by government restrictions or company restrictions, a VPN is the way to go. Great, you say, but which one should you choose?
A VPN creates a secure connection to a server, and if you are in a country that limits what you have access to on Google Play, the secure connection would be in another country. It could possibly lower bills as well if you connect to a server in a different country with a lower price to download movies or TV shows. You would normally choose the OpenVPN (UDP) protocol because it is the fastest. If you have connection problems, you could switch to OpenVPN (TCP) pretty easily, but either way OpenVPN is the best way to go. Since VPNs Protect your privacy as well as unblocking access to media, they will help you in a few ways. Our options have custom clients so setup is easy.
If you want to unblock content or secure your data, we recommend IPVanish. They have the fastest network in North America and Europe, and offer a mobile client as well, so you would only need to connect, and you would be able to stream from the countries with unblocked or cheaper content. In the matter of securing data, IPVanish again is the best choice. They do not keep logs and have a kill switch feature, thus ensuring your safety.
If you just want to have access to geo-restricted content, you would want to pick IPVanish or OverPlay. Both of these services offer internet traffic encryption, but OverPlay also includes SmartDNS with their VPN which will aid in unblocking channels without the slight speed loss. We would not recommend trading security for speed. Whereas speed is a problem if you are trying to stream in some cases, since you only need a speed of 800 mbps, there should be no degradation of quality. The extra layer of encryption is worth any speed loss you may encounter.
For other options, you could look in to our top 10 VPNs, but you should not have to. Our choices are the best overall based on security, speed, and prices. In addition, we also picked the ones with large numbers of network servers in unblocked countries. Because we use reliable providers, we make sure our selections offer fast networks and have good security.