British television is widely recognized as one of the best and most entertaining of the planet. For people born and raised in the United Kingdom, television and film are a huge thing, and there are numerous TV stations and networks available with some of the hottest shows of the moment. To be able to enjoy the best of British TV, you need one of the best VPNs in the market to unblock My5, BBC, ITV, and virtually any UK-based channel you want.
Typically the fifth channel when it comes to market share in the United Kingdom, Channel 5 is a free to air television network that is now 21 years old, having been launched in 1997. It is named as such because it was the fifth national terrestrial analog network in the country. The “usual suspects” were ranked in the top four: BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, and Channel 4.
When the RTL group owned the network, its name was Five (2002-2011.) Then, the station was acquired by Richard Desmond, and the name was changed back to Channel 5. After that, in 2014, Viacom purchased the channel for approximately $760 million, or £450 million.
Channel 5 generally broadcasts entertainment programming. There are internally commissioned shows as well as some imports, with the American productions being widely popular among viewers.
Some of the best shows available on British television
Some of the favorite shows that you can enjoy in Channel are Fifth Gear, Big Brother & Celebrity Big Brother, The Gadget Show, The Hotel Inspector, Can’t Pay? We’ll Take It Away!, Gibraltar: Britain in the Sun, the CSI series, the NCIS series, the first three series in the Law & Order franchise, Power Rangers, The Mentalist, Body of Proof, Once Upon a Time, Dallas, and Under the Dome.
After watching the success of some of its competitors, namely BBC and ITV Studios, Channel 5 decided in 2014 that it would start venturing in the content production industry, creating shows for other channels to broadcast.
One of the products of Channel 5 is My5, which is the video on demand (VOD) service provided by the station. Via My5, users can enjoy all kinds of content in the form of movies and TV series.
Around since 2008, it started as a download center to enjoy content via the Windows Media Video format. However, for ten years now, it has offered more varied programming to online audiences. Lots of productions come in the form of free content provided for up to a month after broadcast.
The My5 service is free, and it while it doesn’t offer live streaming, that is turned into a positive if we tell you that you don’t need a TV License to enjoy it. My5 is a network that hosts a list of channels, 12 to be exact. They are Channel 5, 5USA, 5Star, 5Spike, 5SELECT, Paramount Network, BLAZE, BET, PBS America, Together, Spark, and Real Stories.
Here are some of the shows you can enjoy in the My5 network:
- Empire
- Big Brother
- Sleepy Hollow
- Vikings
- Home and Away
- Neighbours
- Ice Road Truckers
- The Gadget Show
- NCIS: New Orleans
- Suits
The challenges of geo-blocking
As you can see, there are plenty of channels and options you can see if you use the My5 platform. However, nearly all of them are geo-restricted, which means that they are only available, under normal circumstances, in the United Kingdom.
Most of those channels involve agreements with local production companies and studios that prefer their content to be seen only by British audiences. It all comes down to economics, as they want to preserve their intellectual property and avoid the material being copied or reproduced to be shown in other locations, with different legal frameworks.
There are several ways to bypass geo-blocking restrictions and watch British channels from any country. Users could implement a Smart DNS service, or a web proxy, or even some clever configurations in their browsers. However, they would miss out on the best security and privacy features that the best VPNs for My5 can provide.
VPN technology as an unblocking resource
VPN means Virtual Private Networks. They are online resources that can encrypt the content that the user generates from end to end to avoid prying eyes on the web to have any kind of access to it.
The content is rerouted to remote servers via a virtual tunnel that the VPN brand builds through the use of protocols, such as VPN or L2TP/IPSec. That way, the customer can avoid contact with dangerous agents such as hackers, cybercriminals, malware developers, crypto miners, and online advertisers; or protect themselves from unwanted situations such as public Wi-Fi networks, censorship, government surveillance, or geo-blocking.
A VPN service will manage connection requests by positioning itself between the user and the broader network, in this case, the Internet. That way, the Internet Service Provider, known for keeping and sharing logs of the person’s activity (sometimes without consent) is left out of the equation.
VPN apps are excellent ways to provide privacy and security, since they will mask the user’s activity and location from the Internet in the same way that a Smart DNS or a proxy, but with added offerings in the safety department, such as a kill switch, DNS leak protection, a no-logging and sharing policy, and more.
A VPN can hide the user’s IP address (which contains its location information) to disguise a site or streaming platform, such as My5, tricking it into believing that the person using the VPN is accessing from the UK, thus unblocking the content. The best VPNs for My5 need to have servers in the UK, fast speeds, and robust encryption.
| Pick a VPN! | VPN | Price for 1 month sub | Site Rating | Buy Now |
| Best VPN |  | $5 a month (code "best10VPN") | 9.9 |  |
| Good VPN |  | $9 a month | 8.9 | |
| Decent VPN |  | $6.95 a month | 8.8 | |
TorGuard: the best VPN for My5
The industry is full of VPN options. There are alternatives for all tastes, budgets, and purposes. However, the best VPN for My5 is, without a doubt, TorGuard. It offers servers in the United Kingdom, so you can disguise your location and unblock not only My5, but also BBC, ITV, and all British media platforms.
TorGuard offers a full suite of protocol, including OpenVPN UDP, OpenVPN TCP, L2TP/IPSec, PPTP, STunnel, OpenConnect, and Squid. You could connect five simultaneous devices, enjoy the best encryption (AES 256-bit,) a no logging policy, and more than 3,000 servers in 55 nations around the world.
How to unblock My5 internationally with TorGuard, the best VPN for My5
- Go to TorGuard’s website
- Register for the VPN service after you choose your preferred plan. You will need to provide a payment method and some personal information
- Create a username and a password
- Download and install the compatible app or client on your streaming device
- Launch the VPN app or client
- Sign in to your account
- Connect to a UK server
- Open My5, look for the content you want to see, and enjoy!
In conclusion, UK TV, including Channel 5, is among the best in the world, and if you are in a different location, you will surely want to bypass the annoying geo-block. To make sure you can do that and enjoy My5, use TorGuard, the best VPN in the market to access British content.
