How to watch SRF outside Switzerland with a VPN

SRF is one of the biggest Swiss TV channels covering News, Sports events, culture, and many other topics from all around the world. SRF is also well-known for its free streams of Moto GP, Formula 1, and many other global sports events.

While live events as well as the other free sports streamings are totally free in Switzerland, unfortunately, anyone outside experiences geo-restriction issues. This makes the visitors outside Switzerland not capable of watching SRF from their current location.

Bearing the issue in mind, I came up with a VPN solution. This way, we will change our virtual location to Switzerland, bypass SRF geo-restrictions and stream the channel outside Switzerland.


Analysis: Normally, SRF is not only available to Switzerland but also to anyone in other countries. However, both live events and sporting events are protected by copyright. As a result, the channel must confine its operations to Switzerland exclusively.

This is handled by the company by examining your IP address. If you have non-Swiss IP, SRF thinks you are currently not in Switzerland and have no rights to access the website.

Solution: Because the restriction is determined by our IP addresses, we can simply circumvent it with a VPN service. By choosing a reliable and working VPN for SRF, we will be getting a Swiss IP address and watching SRF outside Switzerland.

A quick guide to streaming SRF with a VPN:

  1. Visit Cyberghost VPN -it has reliable and compatible streaming servers for SRF.
  2. Click the “Get it now” button and choose a VPN plan. (The longer period, the cheaper it will be)
  3. Enter your e-mail address, overview the order, and make your payment with a preferred method.
  4. Upon successful purchase, CyberGhost will send the login details to your email address.
  5. Access CyberGhost’s official webpage, access “my account” and log in with the given credentials.
  6. Navigate to “Download hub”, download the VPN app compatible with your device and install it.
  7. Launch Cyberghost VPN, log in to the app, navigate to the “For streamings” menu, search SRF TV and connect to the Switzerland server.

When you connect to a server successfully, the Cyberghost button becomes yellow and assigns you a Swiss IP address. It will undoubtedly assist you in immediately streaming SRF outside of Switzerland. As seen below.

Streaming SRF with a VPN is easier than you think. By using a reliable VPN service, you can access the platform in a few minutes.

Well, it may seem a little bit uncompleted with the quick steps. That is why I want to guide you through each step in detail and explain why we need a VPN service in our situation.

Let’s get started!

Understanding SRF TV geo-restriction

Normally, SRF operates globally. You can read the news, and watch the channel no matter where you are located. However, things get nastier when you try to access the channel during sports events.

SRF explains the issue with the following statements on their “So umgeht man Geoblocking” page:

SRF explains why they are geo-blocking specific visitors.
  • Der Grund heisst «Geoblocking» – bestimmte Inhalte sind im Ausland aus rechtlichen Gründen gesperrt, weil die Abspielrechte nur für die Schweiz vorhanden sind.

If we are to translate the sentence to English, here is the outcome:

  • The reason is called “geoblocking” – certain content is blocked abroad for legal reasons because the playback rights are only available for Switzerland.

In other words, during sports events such as Formula 1, Moto GP, etc, SRF has to limit the availability of the streams to Switzerland only. That is why we get the following error during such events.

If you try to access SRF outside Switzerland, you will be getting the error in this image.

But, it is not a big deal for us!

Watch SRF outside Switzerland with a VPN

As privacy-focused services, VPNs are used to encrypt our online traffic through dedicated servers. The encryptions are handled through a specific protocol with the selected dedicated server.

Besides protecting our online identity, VPNs also assign us an IP address of the country where the VPN server is located.

In other words, if we connect to a server in Switzerland, then we get a Swiss IP address. This also grants us the right to access SRF from our current location.

Even SRF encourages people to use VPN services to bypass such restrictions…

SRF also depicts that such geo-blocking problems can be fixed with a VPN service.

Choosing the best VPN for SRF

Even though the SRF teaches people how to bypass the geo-restrictions, they also state that “a VPN service is not a panacea either. There are Digital Rights Management (DRM) options for providers to block content outside of a specific area. Such sophisticated measures cannot be circumvented even with a VPN. “

That is why many VPN providers are not capable of bypassing SRF geo-restriction. In order for us to find the best VPN for SRF, we need a reliable, and fast VPN service with dedicated Swiss streaming servers.

At that point, CyberGhost stands out as the best VPN for SRF. The company has dedicated streaming servers in Huenenberg or Zurich, Switzerland and it can easily bypass SRF geo-blocking.

In order to make use of this service please, take the steps below:

  • Visit Cyberghost VPN -it has the best VPN servers for SRF live
  • Hit the “Get it now” button and claim your huge discount
  • Enter your e-mail address, make the payment with a preferred method

VPN app installation

Once the purchase is a success, it will take a minute or so for the Cyberghost to approve your order.

If all goes smoothly, then you will get your login credentials to your e-mail address. With the given details, we now need to download the VPN app.

  • Navigate to Cyberghost’s official webpage.
  • Click the “My Account” menu and log in with your details.
  • Navigate to the “Download hub” section on the upper left side of the website. (The new page will list all of the downloadable VPN apps.)
  • Download the app compatible with your device, and install it.

During the installation process, make sure to grant all requested permissions to the VPN app for a smooth streaming experience.

Connecting to Switzerland VPN server

Good work! Cyberghost is ready to use now. As for the most important step, we will connect to the Switzerland server. However, a random Swiss server will not help us. Therefore, make sure to read the following steps thoroughly.

  • Launch the Cyberghost VPN app.
  • Log in to the app with your credentials.
  • Navigate to the “For streaming” section.
  • Search for “SRF” and connect to the promoted Switzerland server on the list.

Upon successful connection, the Cyberghost button will turn yellow and you will get the following interface on your device.

Connecting to the Cyberghost Switzerland server will grant you a Swiss IP address.

That also means that we now have a Swiss IP address.

You might check your IP address if you are properly connected to the Swiss server.

Streaming SRF

So far, we did a lot. Now, it is time to relax and enjoy SRF streaming. Please follow the final steps:

  • Make sure you are connected to Cyberghost’s Switzerland (SRF) server
  • Visit https://www.srf.ch/play/tv and enjoy the live streams or choose a video from the different categories.

SRF TV VPNs (3 Working alternatives)

It might seem complicated. However, when you get used to the why VPN services work, then you can unlock almost any channel or on-demand server no matter where you are located. Still, some channels are hard to bypass through.

As a live example, SRF, actually, is one of the hardest streaming platforms to unblock outside Switzerland. VPN services give special efforts for such platforms and they are in a constant battle with SRF.

The channel also states that they are using Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools to prevent VPNs from granting backdoor access to its users. Therefore, it is a matter of time before the VPN of our choice might be blocked by SRF.

That is why I decided to put forward some alternative VPN services for SRF. This way, in case of a blockage, you can make use of these alternative services, and keep streaming SRF from where you left off.

Surfshark

Surfshark is a British Virgin Island-based VPN provider focusing on both online privacy and bypassing geo-restrictions. The company has servers in more than 60 different countries and lucky enough, it also has dedicated servers in Switzerland.

What makes Surfshark more alluring for the streamers is that Surfshark’s Switzerland servers are streaming-friendly and they can easily bypass SRF geo-restrictions.

As an alternative solution, Surfshark can help you stream SRF live with amazing quality.

In addition to that, the latest speed test results from Surfshark’s Switzerland servers were quite astonishing. I was able to get a download speed of 177+ Mbps. That is enough to stream SRF with the best quality possible. You can even see the live results in the image above.

Moreover, Surfshark has a unique feature that no other VPN on this has, the company offers unlimited simultaneous connections and the cheapest plan starts from as low as 2.30$/month.

NordVPN

Panama-based NordVPN does not have any assertive statement on its website about there being a streaming-friendly VPN service at all. The company mainly focuses on user privacy and spares less energy the streaming services.

Yet, interestingly, their dedicated servers in Switzerland are able to unblock the SRF channel. Currently, the company has more than 100 servers in Switzerland and offers an outstanding SRF streaming experience through them.

NordVPN Swiss servers are able to unblock the SRF VPN embargo and it will help you watch SRF outside Switzerland.

I was able to get a download speed of 178 Mbps with the NordVPN Swiss server and the quality of the stream was already reflected in the screenshot I took above.

Leaving the streaming behind, here is a fact that not many VPN users love. Unfortunately, NordVPN is quite expensive when compared to its competitors. A single account will grant you just 6 simultaneous connections and the basic plan starts from 3.99$/month.

VyprVPN

VyprVPN is a Switzerland-based VPN provider that features on our website from time to time. The company has self-managed dedicated servers all around the world. Its coverage is not as big as the other VPNs on our list. However, VyprVPN has plenty of quality servers in Switzerland as well.

VyprVPN does not claim to be a streaming-friendly VPN provider in the market. However, its Swiss server is able to unblock SRF contents without any issues.

VyprVPN is another VPN service compatible with SRF live streaming. Yet, it is quite expensive.

Self-managed dedicated servers seem to work fine in terms of speed performance as well. My latest speed test gave me a download speed of 160+ Mbps and helped me stream Football matches from SRF with amazing quality.

Last but not least, here comes something you might not like. Unfortunately, VyprVPN is way too expensive. The cheapest plans start from 8.13$/month.

If you want to merge privacy as well as this streaming option, then VyprVPN could be a good solution for you. If not, I suggest the cheaper alternatives on our list.

Summing up SRF streaming

SRF is one of the most demanded streaming platforms in Europe. The channel offers a variety of free streaming events such as Formula 1, Moto GP, Football matches, and several other sports events.

While the company airs almost all of its content globally, unfortunately, when it comes to the live streamings of the matches, SRF confines the availability of the channel to Switzerland territory only. Such a problem is called geo-restriction and it can be easily fixed with a VPN service.

In this tutorial, I taught you how to choose the best VPN service for SRF, install it properly, and bypass the SRF embargo via the Switzerland VPN server.

In addition to that, we grasped the necessity of alternative VPN services such as Surfshark, NordVPN, or VyprVPN as SRF might block the VPN of our choice.

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