Having amassed over 500 million downloads since launching in 2016, Pokémon Go is clearly one of the most popular mobile games out there. But what's not to love about searching high and low across your neighborhood to catch all kinds of different Pokémon?
Unfortunately, not everyone is lucky enough to experience Pokémon Go. In fact, there's a long list of countries where the augmented reality game isn't available. And if you don't live in a big city or town, there won't be as many Pokémon, PokéStops and Gyms to find in your neighborhood.
However, by downloading one of the best VPN services and spoofing your location, it's easy to get around these different problems. In fact, Surfshark is the only VPN provider that offers a built-in GPS spoofing that will enable you to change the physical location of your device so that Pokémon Go believes that you're in a country where it's available or somewhere you'll find no shortage of Pokémon. We explain how to do this.
With plans starting out at about 8 cents per day, it's really hard to skip over Surfshark because it's a paid service. It offers a ton of great features that you'd expect from a VPN provider, and is super simple to use.
What is location spoofing?
So, before we delve in and explain how to spoof your location within Pokémon Go, you might be questioning what this actually means? Well, it's pretty simple. Location spoofing enables users to change or mask the GPS of their device in order to do things like unblock geo-restricted content and improve online privacy.
Nowadays, many apps access your physical location, and location spoofing is a great way to get them to believe that you're somewhere else. For this to work, you'll typically need a VPN and fake GPS app. But, as aforementioned, Surfshark actually has the latter integrated in its Android app.
How to spoof your location in Pokémon Go
You should now have a better idea of what location spoofing is and how it works. Now, let's talk through the steps that you need to take in order to spoof your location within the Pokémon Go app via Surfshark.
- If you're going to use Surfshark, you'll need to sign up for a subscription and download the app on your Android smartphone.
- Once Surfshark has downloaded, head into the app's settings and press the Override GPS location setting. 3.This will bring up a message telling you to tweak some settings in your phone - all you need to do is click on the blue "let's go" button.
- You'll be taken to a page that asks you to enable developer options on your device. Just press "open settings".
- When you're in Settings, click About phone and then search for the build number within that page. Then click on it seven times to enable developer mode.
- After that, head back into the Surfshark app and click to the arrow to move on to the next instructions. Now, you'll be asked to choose Surfshark as your mock location app - simply press open settings.
- This will direct you to the developer options of your device. Press select mock location app and choose Surfshark in the list of apps.
- Finally, open up the Surfshark app and you'll see a message that says the setup process has been completed.
At this point, Surfshark says that "your GPS location will be overridden to match the location that you connect to using our VPN". To double-check that everything is in working order, the British Virgin Islands-based provider advises changing your location and checking if it appears in Google Maps.
If you intend to fake your GPS location in Pokémon Go (which is likely to be the case as you're reading this article), there are a few more steps that you need to take.
- First, decide which location you want to use Pokémon Go. We'd recommend trying out major cities like New York and London, but you can find different locations by heading to pokemap.net.
- Now, open up the Surfshark app with GPS spoofing enabled and find a server in your chosen location.
- Once you've found and connected to a server, open the Pokémon Go app and your chosen location should be displayed.
- Finally, you can catch all the Pokémon that your heart desires.
You may also need to install this "Mock Mock Locations" module on your device if you experience errors with the steps above. If this doesn't work, you may want to try using an Android emulator, like Bluestacks, to be able to get things running as well.
Be sure to check out our full Surfshark VPN review now to learn more about the service and to help you get started with using it.
We are not able to guarantee that this won't result in any actions being taken against your account from Niantic. Please use this method with caution and make sure you consider the potential risks.
With plans starting out at about 8 cents per day, it's really hard to skip over Surfshark because it's a paid service. It offers a ton of great features that you'd expect from a VPN provider, and is super simple to use.
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example:
1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service).
2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad.
We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
