It's often been mentioned to get a Firestick on this thread. Living in France, my satellite dish (beaming Sky channels) is being obstructed by large trees....hence I am looking at alternatives.
- Is it easy to install? I have one free hdmi slot on my (non smart) TV.
just plug it in to your spare HDMI slot and then the wall for power then connect to your wifi ( its got to be a decent connection though )
- Presumably it has its own hand held 'controller' ?
yes
- Would it be able to receive mainstream UK channels (how?) and children's programmes? (KIDS on Sky...).
I guess they will be locked to the region, so a VPN would be needed,
- Does it have a VPN of its own....so that eg I could set it to UK and then use BBC iPlayer?
- I usually set my VPN on my laptop rather than on the wifi router itself.
last time I looked it had a few, its all app based, so just install whatever VPN app you prefer
- Are all Firesticks pretty much the same?
Firestick is the AMAZON brand, they do a LITE one, a 4K one and a standard one
- I have read that ROKU might be better?
its a personal choice, I have a cheap NOWTV stick on one of the TV's ( its a rebadged ROKU lite ) but also have a few Firestick lites ( they were nothing money in the Black Friday sale ) they are all pretty much the same, they install app's to watch TV, most channels have them now, so Netflix, Prime, NOWTV, Disney Plus etc etc
All advice and information welcome.