Chromecast, Chromebook, and VPN

VPN
1

Just wanted to share some tidbits. I’m watching the Olympics on CBC Canada. I’ve got a VPN account (NordVPN) and that part works great, I can watch all day on my laptop browser. But when trying to cast it, there are problems. Chrome has built-in casting, but the later versions of Chrome appear to include geo-blocking, which then won’t work. I was able to get an older version of Chrome, which works great. (Just have to disable it from auto-updating.)

From a Chromebook I get the same problem, but I can’t downgrade Chrome there. If I try to just “cast” the whole screen, it does work but I have to do it in the right order.

  1. From a blank start, cast the screen “desktop”
  2. Open browser but don’t go anywhere
  3. Start NordVPN, connect to Canada
  4. From browser, go to CBC and start your video, expand to fill whole screen

If I try to start the video first and then connect to Chromecast, the connection fails.

2

Try setting up your router to route all traffic through the VPN, that way it will also mask the connection from your chromecasts.

3

If this is a Chromecast with Google TV there are apps you can get that don’t require VPN (or casting) to watch geolocked content. If older CC sorry not sure.