Most of us use routers to share our Internet connections, and that is easy and quick. However, there might be situations when you feel like sharing your VPN connection. But, if you want to set up a VPN connection directly on your router, that can be advanced, and often you do not want all your Internet traffic to be run through the VPN connection. So, what can you do if you want to share a VPN connection active on your computer with other devices around you?
Windows has tried to make it easier to share your Internet connection with the newer versions of Windows. But, if you want to share your actual VPN connection, it still is kind of hard, and to get it working, you better use the services of Connectify. This is a brilliant application that will help you turn your computer into a WiFi hotspot, and most importantly, it will make you able to share your VPN connection with nearby devices.
Why do you want to share a VPN connection with other devices?
If you wonder why this is interesting, then you probably shouldn’t read this article. The reason why you are here, is that you have an actual problem and you are looking for a solution. Maybe you want to bypass a geo-block on your Apple TV or on your Chromecast, but these devices cannot be run with a VPN connection on their own. So, in order to make these run with a VPN connection, you want to share your computers VPN connection with these through a WiFi signal, which will make them able to stream the content you want to watch, wherever you might be in the world.
If you would rather setup your router directly to run all traffic using your VPN subscription, then you can read more about configuring your router in this article. But, it is advanced and you will for sure spend quite a lot of time to make this work (if you end up succeeding).
Share a VPN connection in Windows with other devices
If your goal is to bypass geo-blocks, you better use a VPN provider that will actually help you bypass such geo-blocks. You can sign up for any VPN provider out there, but if you want to stream Hulu, American Netflix CBS All Access, or maybe some other streaming service out there, make sure to use a VPN provider that will actually help you out.
The best VPN provider on the market at the moment if you want to bypass geo-blocks all around the world is ExpressVPN.
Feel free to give them a try and know that they have a 30-day money back guarantee, so unless you like the product, you can get your money back easily. In addition, you can use ExpressVPN on three devices at the same time, making it easy to have a computer running with ExpressVPN constantly, while you can still use the same credentials on different devices at other locations at the same time.
Once you have this running, you better visit the Connectify website and sign up for their services and download their application as well.
You can now start ExpressVPN and connect to one of their VPN servers. You can then open Connectify and choose the ExpressVPN connection as the one you want to share. It is really easy, and you will have the VPN connection shared in a couple of minutes from now.
If you get your original Internet connection using an Ethernet cable, you will need a network card installed in order to share the VPN connection. If you get your Internet connection through a network card, you might need an additional network card that will share your Internet signal in addition to the one you use to receive a WiFi signal.
This can be really useful if you want to use a Fire TV Stick abroad, if you want to access blocked material on your Apple TV, or if you want to use your Chromecast to stream content abroad.
Video tutorial showing how this works.
Take a look at the following YouTube video to see how I share my VPN connection in Windows using ExpressVPN and Connectify.
We hope this article will help you share your Internet connection and your VPN connection to other devices in Windows. If you have a comment or a question, use the comment field beneath. We would love to hear from you!
