The Roku Channel is one of the best ways to watch thousands of free movies and shows, thanks to its partnerships with dozens and dozens of content sources — and its standing as the No. 1 streaming platform in the United States and the second largest in the rest of the world.
The Roku Channel brings together some of the best movies and shows from throughout the years, all under one roof, supported by advertising. It also has a growing stable of original content that you won't find anywhere else. And the best part is that you don't have to pay a thing. You just have to be in the United States, or Canada or the UK. And you don't even need a Roku player or Roku TV to watch, as The Roku Channel also is available on select Samsung Smart TVs, on Amazon Fire TV — and in a web browser.
That last part is super important, because it quite literally opens up all the free content on The Roku Channel to far more people than if it were siloed to just Roku devices.
There's one problem, though: You can only watch The Roku Channel in a web browser from the United States. Limitations like that aren't usual. And, fortunately for those who might find themselves traveling outside their home base of the U.S., it's simple enough to make sure that you can continue to enjoy The Roku Channel in a web browser no matter where you are in the world.
And you might even make your setup a little more secure in the process.
How to watch The Roku Channel from anywhere in the world
In order to watch The Roku Channel in a web browser, you'll need to be in the United States. Or, more accurately, you'll need your computer to be in the United States. And it's simple enough to route all your internet traffic through the United States with the use of a simple VPN.
A virtual private network takes tells your computer (or whatever device, really) and runs all of its network traffic through a specific set of servers in a specific location. Say, in the United States. So if you're on vacation in the South of France (which is a seriously great place to vacation) but still want to watch your favorite shows and movies for free on The Roku Channel, a VPN should be able to take care of that for you.
There's just one serious caveat here, and that's that you need to be able to trust your VPN provider because all of your network traffic is going to be going through it — and that means encrypted and unencrypted traffic alike.
To that end, we've long been fans of ExpressVPN. It's affordable and easy to use, and it's a VPN provider you can trust. You just sign up, follow the instructions, turn it on, and you're able to swing all your network traffic back through the United States, so you can watch The Roku Channel from anywhere.
And because it's a VPN, it also means that it's a much more secure method of getting online in a public setting. Instead of using the public internet at your local coffee shop, with unencrypted traffic flying by for anyone who wants to see, it's all safe and secure in an encrypted tunnel, which absolutely is the right way to do things.
And that it lets you watch what you want to watch, wherever you want want to watch it — that's just a huge bonus.
