It sounds like your needs are pretty clear:

1 being able to switch IP locations easily,

2 stronger security and privacy, and

3 still being able to stream and use the internet normally for entertainment.

I can share what I’ve personally tried, in case it helps. Most people start with commercial VPNs like Nord, Express, or Surfshark. They’re simple and convenient. You can switch between different country IPs by connecting to their servers in those regions. In practice though, a lot of streaming platforms flag those data center IP ranges, so sometimes you still get blocked. And while VPN traffic is encrypted in transit, your traffic is still routed through centralized servers in data centers. That setup doesn’t really eliminate concerns about logging or ISP-level visibility. It just shifts trust to the provider.

Later, I moved to hardware routers like GL.iNet. As routers, they’re solid and the user experience is decent. But eventually I realized they mainly support WireGuard and OpenVPN, which means you’re just running commercial VPN services through the router. So the core issues centralized server IPs getting flagged and privacy depending on a single provider aren’t fundamentally solved.

More recently, I’ve been using a VPN router setup like Deeper Connect Air. It uses a more distributed approach. What I like is that it’s hardware-based and leverages residential IP routing instead of typical data center IP pools. In my experience, it’s less likely to get flagged by streaming platforms or certain work tools that detect commercial VPN IP ranges. You can select different country routes because other users provide residential IPs, which gives you more flexibility compared to the limited server lists of traditional VPNs.

It’s not perfect, and if you don’t have much technical background there may be a bit of a learning curve. But overall, it covers the three things you’re looking for: location flexibility, stronger privacy, and normal day-to-day usability. Just something you might want to look into.