Providers with documented Smart TV setup guides - Samsung, LG, Android TV and more.
Short answer: TrickByte is our top-rated Smart TV Smart DNS as of 2026-09-23 (4.5/10), from $2.08/mo, 14-day free trial without a card.
providers on this page: 19 · active today (excl. watch list): 15 · standalone DNS specialists: 12 · VPN-bundled Smart DNS: 6
quick picks
Cheap plans and a long 14-day no-card trial, but a stale site with dead services still listed and refunds purely at the operator's discretion. Treat as semi-dormant and test heavily in the trial.
The most complete standalone Smart DNS: 400+ channels, VPN bundled, 14-day trial without a card.
A modern, technically strong DNS platform (DoH/DoT/DoQ, 1009 documented services, 14-day no-card trial) - but the operator itself warns that unblocking is best-effort and excluded from refunds. Wrong first pick if unblocking is your primary goal.
Cheapest serious standalone Smart DNS - $29.99/year with apps for TV and mobile.
A Ziff Davis legacy product that still works and takes PayPal/crypto, bundled with StrongVPN accounts - but the site is unmaintained (KB frozen since 2020, empty policies page, no channel list), so treat it as a bundle extra, not a primary choice.
Cheap ($2.99/mo flat) with DoH/DoT and 3 simultaneous locations, run by a named individual with no published company - and strictly no refunds. The 3-day trial is the only safety net.
MediaStreamer is a well-documented bundle extra from a heavily audited operator - but it unblocks only US/UK sites per third-party testing, has no marketing page anymore, and only makes sense alongside an ExpressVPN subscription.
Polished Danish Smart DNS + VPN bundle with a strong reputation and unlimited DNS devices.
CyberGhost SmartDNS no longer unblocks streaming services per the operator itself - it is general-purpose DNS only. Not a Smart DNS option anymore; listed for reference.
A bundled control-panel extra from one of the most court-proven no-logs VPNs in the market - but with no documented unblocking scope and a US jurisdiction, it is an add-on, not a reason to subscribe.
A long-running Icelandic Smart DNS (now bundled with a VPN) with honest trial terms - 7 days no card, 30-day money-back - but a small 55-service list and a logging claim disputed by an independent review.
Veteran Australian Smart DNS with a lifetime plan and VPN bundled into paid tiers.
A modern app + DNS product with a per-country service directory (76 services) and a 7-day free trial - but refund terms differ by product and independent testing is thin and dated.
SmartDNS is a solid bundled extra for smart TVs, with six independent no-logs audits behind the operator - but its streaming list is US-focused, unblocking is explicitly not guaranteed for every service, and it only exists alongside a NordVPN subscription.
Still selling Smart DNS + VPN with a 3-day trial and 30-day money-back - but no legal entity is disclosed anywhere and the domain was re-registered in 2024, so we list it under watch until an operator identity is verifiable.
Technically alive but visibly abandoned for years: no Netflix, a frozen 230-service list full of dead names, and an operator that is unclear across three different named entities. Only the 14-day e-mail-only trial makes it testable - treat everything else as unverified.
Smart DNS is still sold with a 3-day no-card trial and 340+ listed services, but Netflix US is disabled in the operator's own grid, prices have doubled since 2024, and the client apps have not shipped in years. Verify your exact services in the trial before paying.
Alive and selling Smart DNS from a verifiable Toronto company, but with its VPN discontinued, no free trial, a short 7-day refund window and an expiring domain - watch status until renewal and product direction are clearer.
Operating with a checkered ownership history and a canceled-lifetime-deals controversy - and its Smart DNS is a marketing line, not a documented product. We list it under watch; not recommended for Smart DNS.
Smart TV is where Smart DNS earns its existence: no apps, no tunnels, no certificates - two DNS entries and every TV app routes through the provider. But each TV OS hides the setting in a different place, and two device classes actively fight the setup. The map:
100% of the providers on this page document Smart TV setups explicitly, and 100% document router-level DNS - the table's TV and router columns are the live check. A provider without TV documentation is not necessarily broken on TVs, but it is telling you where its support hours went.
TV platforms fail differently from laptops, and diagnosing without the map wastes evenings:
And the meta-fix that prevents the whole class of "it stopped working" weeks later: dynamic DNS. Home IPs change (router reboots, ISP maintenance), the provider's IP registration goes stale, and everything breaks at once. 32% of providers document an update URL - the [Unlocator dynamic-DNS guide][4] is the pattern - and 10 minutes of setup makes the TV setup permanently self-healing.
The router path configures every device in the house at once, which is why the veterans document it as the default[2]. The two traps that router setups specifically punish:
The clean middle path many households converge on: device-level DNS on the primary TV (precise, reversible), router-level only for the Chromecast/Roku corner cases.
| Provider | Smart TV | Router | DDNS | DoH/DoT | Netflix | BBC iPlayer | Trial | Annual | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TrickByte | TV | router | - | - | claimed | claimed | 14 days, no card | $39.96/yr | - |
| Smart DNS Proxy | TV | router | DDNS | - | claimed | claimed | 14 days, no card | $55.36/yr | - |
| ControlD | TV | router | DDNS | DoH/DoT | claimed | claimed | 14 days, no card | - | - |
| KeepSolid SmartDNS | TV | router | - | - | claimed | claimed | 7 days, no card | $29.99/yr | - |
| StrongDNS | TV | router | - | - | - | - | 7 days | $50.04/yr | - |
| dns4me | TV | router | DDNS | DoH/DoT | - | - | 3 days, no card | $35.88/yr | - |
| ExpressVPN MediaStreamer | TV | router | DDNS | - | claimed | claimed | - | $74.85/yr | - |
| Unlocator | TV | router | DDNS | - | claimed | claimed | 7 days, no card | - | - |
| CyberGhost Smart DNS | TV | router | - | - | no | no | - | - | - |
| PIA Smart DNS | TV | router | - | - | - | - | - | $47.88/yr | - |
| playmoTV | TV | router | - | - | claimed | claimed | 7 days, no card | $79.95/yr | - |
| Getflix | TV | router | DDNS | - | claimed | claimed | 3 days, no card | $44.98/yr | - |
| StreamLocator | TV | router | - | - | claimed | claimed | 7 days, no card | $49.99/yr | - |
| NordVPN SmartDNS | TV | router | - | - | partial | - | - | $65.88/yr | - |
| SmartyDNS | TV | router | - | - | claimed | claimed | 3 days, no card | $49.95/yr | watch |
| SimpleTelly | TV | router | - | - | no | claimed | 14 days, no card | - | watch |
| CactusVPN | TV | router | - | - | no | claimed | 3 days, no card | $70/yr | - |
| DNSFlex | TV | router | - | - | claimed | claimed | - | - | watch |
| VPNSecure | TV | router | - | - | - | - | - | $59.88/yr | watch |
Live values from our database - details and caveats in each review. "-" = not documented by the operator.
The TV column is where budget providers quietly differ from veterans: maintaining per-OS setup guides for six TV platforms is real support work, and its absence shows up as "contact us for TV setup" - which is where a cheap annual loses its shine. The comparison that matters for TV households:
The whole page compressed, for the household that wants it working tonight:
That is the entire maintenance story. When something breaks weeks later, the router guide's troubleshooting section reads like this list in reverse - and the provider's KB is the third place to look, after IP re-registration and the changes feed.
One level deeper than the map above - the per-OS facts that decide whether your evening setup takes 10 minutes or 2 hours:
The pattern behind the list: TVs with editable DNS make Smart DNS a two-minute job; TVs without it push you one level up to the router - where the router guide documents every major firmware's path.
Real households mix TV OSes, and the setups that survive are the ones designed for the mixture rather than the single device:
Every pattern works; what kills setups is half-migration - DNS from different providers mixed across devices, or a device left pointing at a dead provider. The router guide's cleanup checklist handles the aftermath.
A seasonal reality worth expecting rather than fearing: TV platforms push firmware updates that reset network settings, swap DNS handling, or update apps with new endpoints. The failure pattern is distinctive (everything worked, then an overnight update), and the fixes are the same three:
Providers that maintain per-OS KB pages (100% of this page's population document TV setups) update their guides when platforms change behavior - one more reason the documentation column in the table above is a buying criterion, not a nicety.
Samsung Tizen and LG webOS - both expose manual DNS per network in settings, and both respect it for all apps. Apple TV is the cleanest single-device setup; Fire TV usually wants router-level DNS (no per-device UI on most builds).
Classic Chromecast sticks hardcode Google DNS (8.8.8.8) and bypass your settings entirely. The fix is router-level: block or redirect port 53 to the provider's resolvers with a static route. The [router guide](/guides/router-smart-dns-setup/) documents the exact pattern per router platform.
It can - if the TV gets IPv6 from the router, streaming domains may resolve over IPv6 and skip your IPv4 DNS settings entirely. Disable IPv6 on the router (or use the provider's IPv6 instructions); this is the most under-diagnosed "provider broken" case.
Router-level if you have more than one device to cover or own a Chromecast; per-device for a single TV where you want guest devices untouched. The router covers everything but touches every device - the guide covers both paths.
Your home IP changed and the provider's IP registration went stale. Re-register in the dashboard, or automate it with the provider's dynamic-DNS URL ({{stat: ddns_n}} of providers document one) - then it self-heals forever.
No - that is the entire point of Smart DNS. No apps, no certificates, no sideloading. The only TV-side action is the DNS edit (or nothing, with router-level setup) plus an app restart to flush the resolver cache.
The ones with per-OS guides and a real KB - {{stat: smart_tv_n}} of the providers on this page document Smart TV support, and {{stat: router_n}} document router-level setup. The table's TV and router columns are the live audit.
For every app that respects the device resolver - which is nearly all TV apps. Exceptions are the hardcoded-DNS devices (Chromecast-class) and apps that do their own DoH (rare on TVs). The per-service table shows which providers document which services.
Router-level DNS (or the [hardware option](/best/smart-tv/)'s hub device). Roku is the classic case: no manual DNS anywhere in the UI, so the router carries the whole setup.
Marginally - the DNS values are identical, the menus differ. Good providers maintain per-device guides (the [setup overview][3] is the shape); the reviews flag operators whose TV documentation is stale or missing.