Technologies

Grand National 2023 Livestream: How to Watch Aintree Horse Racing From Anywhere

The world’s most prestigious National Hunt steeplechase returns to Aintree Racecourse.

The most highly anticipated horse race on the British calendar is here, as the runners and riders look to take on the intimidating hurdles of Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool for the 2023 Grand National.

Watched by a global audience of around 600 million people, the race was first held in 1839, with this year’s event marking the 50th anniversary of the triumph of arguably its most famous winner, Red Rum.

Designed to test both the skill and stamina of both horses and jockeys, the Grand National is run over a distance of four miles and two furlongs, with horses having to navigate 30 fences, including the infamously difficult Becher’s Brook and the Chair.

The Ted Walsh-trained Ain’t That A Shame is this year’s main favorite, but it will be up against a strong field of 39 other horses, including last year’s winner Noble Yeats, as well as the well-fancied Delta Work.

Below, we’ll outline the best live TV streaming services to use to watch the race live wherever you are in the world.

Horses jumping a hurdle at Aintree Racecourse — Noble Yeats will be looking to make it back-to-back Grand National triumphs following the Emmet Mullins-trained horse’s victory in the 2022 race.

Mike Egerton/PA Images/Getty Images

Grand National 2023: When and where?

This year’s Grand National takes place at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool on Saturday, April 15. The horses are set to be under starter’s orders at 5:15 p.m. BST local time in the UK (12:15 p.m. ET, 8:15 a.m. PT in the US and 2:15 a.m. AEST in Australia on Sunday, April 16).

How to watch the Grand National 2023 online from anywhere using a VPN

If you find yourself unable to view the Grand National locally, you may need a different way to watch the race — that’s where using a VPN can come in handy. A VPN is also the best way to stop your ISP from throttling your speeds on game day by encrypting your traffic, and it’s also a great idea if you’re traveling and find yourself connected to a Wi-Fi network, and you want to add an extra layer of privacy for your devices and logins.

With a VPN, you’re able to virtually change your location on your phone, tablet or laptop to get access to the game. Most VPNs, like our Editors’ Choice, ExpressVPN, make it really easy to do this.

Using a VPN to watch or stream sports is legal in any country where VPNs are legal, including the US, UK and Canada, as long as you have a legitimate subscription to the service you’re streaming. You should be sure your VPN is set up correctly to prevent leaks: Even where VPNs are legal, the streaming service may terminate the account of anyone it deems to be circumventing correctly applied blackout restrictions.

Looking for other options? Be sure to check out some of the other great VPN deals taking place right now.

Sarah Tew/CNET

ExpressVPN

Best VPN for streaming

ExpressVPN is our current best VPN pick for people who want a reliable and safe VPN, and it works on a variety of devices. It’s normally $13 per month, and you can sign up for ExpressVPN and save 49% plus get three months of access for free — the equivalent of $6.67 per month — if you get an annual subscription.

Note that ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.

See at ExpressVPN

Livestream the Grand National 2023 in the UK for free

It’s one of the biggest events on the UK’s sporting calendar, and you can watch this year’s event live and for free in the region, with the Grand National being shown on free-to-air terrestrial broadcaster ITV1. That also means you’ll be able to stream the race for free on the network’s streaming service ITVX. Coverage starts at 1 p.m. BST on Saturday afternoon, with the Grand National itself set to start at 5:15 p.m.

ITVX

Watch the Grand National on ITVX for free

ITVX is completely free to use in the UK, and works across a wide range of devices including Chromecast, desktop, iOS and Android, Roku, Sky Glass and Xbox devices.

See at ITVX

Can I livestream the Grand National 2023 in the US?

Despite its iconic standing in the global horse racing calendar, no US network will be showing this year’s Grand National.

That also means that if you’re in the US traveling for pleasure or for work, you’re unlikely to be able to watch the race like you normally would at home thanks to geo-blocking.

There is one option to get around this, however. By using a VPN, as explained above, you can set your location to a country where the Grand National is being broadcast and go from there.

Livestream the Grand National 2023 in Canada for free

This year’s race can be live streamed for free on the CBC Sports website. Coverage kicks off at 11:30 a.m. ET, 9:30 a.m. PT on Saturday morning, with the main event set to begin at 12:15 p.m. ET, 9:15 a.m. PT.

CBC Sports

Watch the Grand National for free

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is a free-to-air public service for those living in the region, offering a wide variety of sports to watch, including World Athletics and UCI cycling.

See at CBC

Livestream the Grand National 2023 in Australia

Horse racing fans Down Under can watch this showpiece sporting event from Aintree via premium TV provider Foxtel, with the race set to be shown on the Sky Racing channel.

Foxtel

Watch the Grand National from AUS$25 per month

Australia’s premier pay TV service offers multiple channels and plans that vary based on what content you want included. As well as a wide range of top-tier sports via Fox Sports and BeIN, the service also offers access to the latest Hollywood movies, plus HBO, Warner Bros. and Discovery content.

See at Foxtel

Quick tips for streaming the Grand National using a VPN

With four variables at play — your ISP, browser, video streaming provider and VPN — your experience and success when streaming the big race may vary.
If you don’t see your desired location as a default option for ExpressVPN, try using the «search for city or country» option.
If you’re having trouble getting the game after you’ve turned on your VPN and set it to the correct viewing area, there are two things you can try for a quick fix. First, log into your streaming service subscription account and make sure the address registered for the account is an address in the correct viewing area. If not, you may need to change the physical address on file with your account. Second, some smart TVs — like Roku — don’t have VPN apps you can install directly on the device itself. Instead, you’ll have to install the VPN on your router or the mobile hotspot you’re using (like your phone) so that any device on its Wi-Fi network now appears in the correct viewing location.
All of the VPN providers we recommend have helpful instructions on their main site for quickly installing the VPN on your router. In some cases with smart TV services, after you install a cable network’s sports app, you’ll be asked to verify a numeric code or click a link sent to your email address on file for your smart TV. This is where having a VPN on your router will also help, since both devices will appear to be in the correct location.
And remember, browsers can often give away a location despite using a VPN, so be sure you’re using a privacy-first browser to log into your services. We normally recommend Brave.

Technologies

You Can’t Trust Your Car’s Driving Assistance System Yet, AAA Report Finds

Both hands-on and hands-off systems required human intervention to avoid accidents in this study.

Technologies

Google’s AI Mode Is Getting New Agentic Features for Restaurant Reservations and More

AI Mode can now do most of the work to find dinner reservations for you.

Google’s AI Mode is getting new agentic capabilities and expanding to 180 new countries and territories around the world, Google announced Thursday. AI Mode allows you to ask questions directly to Google and it’ll kick off a series of searches on your behalf. From there, it will surface relevant information to your query without the need to do any of the deep research yourself. It changes the way you search for things online, and it’s getting even smarter with this latest rollout.

Powered by DeepMind’s Project Mariner, the latest additions bring us further into the agentic AI future we’ve been promised for some time, directly from a search box. Instead of just finding things for you, AI Mode can now do things for you, like finding dinner reservations, flights or concert tickets. The update also brings personalized recommendations and link-sharing capabilities for easier collaboration with friends and family.

Most of the new features are either limited to premium AI subscribers and tucked behind an experiment in Google Labs, but it might not take long before they’re a standard part of your future search experience.

Google did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for further comment.

Restaurant recommendations

Instead of searching for restaurant reservations and then clicking on a specific website to make a reservation, AI Mode surfaces everything you need to complete the action right there. Since it’s contextually aware, you can add specificities to your query that a typical Google search wouldn’t handle well.

You can add the type of cuisine, number of people, time and location to a single query, and AI Mode will get to work and display real-time restaurant reservation time slots to choose from.

Google says it’s partnered with OpenTable, Resy, Tock, Ticketmaster and several other companies to make finding and doing what you want easier, since you won’t have to put in the legwork yourself.

This feature is currently rolling out to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the US who have enabled the specific experiment in Labs.

Personalized recommendations

Another experiment that’s currently available in the US (that also needs to be enabled in Labs) is personalized recommendations. Google says it’s starting with dining-related recommendations, which implies more options will be on the way in the future.

The experiment will use your past conversations with AI Mode, places you’ve interacted with on Search and Maps to provide suggestions tailored specifically to you.

Share AI Mode links with others for collaboration

If you’re planning a vacation or a party, you can now share your research directly with others with a new link-sharing feature built into AI Mode. People who interact with the link will be sent to the last response sent by AI Mode and can continue the conversation on their own to do more exploration on the topic. The original sender of the links can manage them and delete them at any time.

For more, don’t miss everything Google announced at its Pixel 10 event.

Technologies

IPhone or Android, Here’s How to Finally Escape That Endless Group Chat

Done with a group chat? Here’s how to ghost it on any service.

One reason people prefer group chats in Apple’s iMessage or RCS texting is the extra control and security these platforms provide. If everyone in your group is using iPhones, or if you’re on Android chatting through RCS, you’ll get features like typing indicators, high-quality media sharing, and the option to mute or leave a conversation when you need fewer notifications.

The biggest advantage is privacy. Both iMessage and RCS group chats offer end-to-end encryption, so your conversations stay secure. The only time that doesn’t apply is when a thread includes a mix of iPhone and Android users, which limits encryption support.

Knowing these differences can help you manage your chats more effectively, whether you’re keeping up with friends, planning events, or just looking for a little more control over your notifications.

And with RCS support with iOS 18, group chats that include a mix of iPhone and Android participants have more features than ever — but it’s not at the level you’ll experience when a conversation is fully on iMessage or Google Messages. «Green bubble chats» from an iPhone to an Android phone can now include typing indicators, higher-quality media and easier group chats.

However, RCS conversations between the iPhone and Android phones don’t include encryption now, but it should be added in a future update. This will hopefully give these conversations a similar level of privacy that we expect when using chat services like iMessage, WhatsApp or Signal.

Regardless of how you’re in a group chat with others, you can leave a chat. Here are the steps to leave any conversation from your phone’s texting app, regardless of whether it’s happening on iMessage, RCS or as a mixed MMS chat.

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Leaving group chats on an iPhone

You can leave group conversations on your iPhone in two ways. You can either mute a chat,which keeps you in a conversation but you no longer receive notifications about it, or you can outright leave and no longer have access to the chat.

On an iPhone, open Messages and go to the chat thread you want to leave. At the top of the screen are conversation controls, a group of icons with the participants. Tap this to open a pop-up menu. As long as your conversation has four or more participants, iOS gives you the ability to tap Leave this Conversation with red text. If your chat has three or fewer participants, though, the option is grayed out, but you can tap Hide Alerts to prevent the conversation from notifying you further. Tapping Hide Alerts also allows you to mute a conversation, letting you keep access to a chat without necessarily leaving it. These steps apply to both iMessage conversations and to those over RCS.

Hide and block MMS chats on an iPhone

Although you can’t officially leave MMS group chats, you can hide or block the conversation. It’s not as good as outright leaving a conversation (other participants will still see you as in it), but you at least have no personal evidence of the conversation continuing.

On an iPhone, visit the group chat and tap the conversation controls. Instead of seeing Leave this conversation, you will see the option to Delete and Block this conversation. If you’d rather just mute the conversation instead of deleting and blocking it, you can hit Hide Alerts to mute it.

Leave group chats on an Android phone

On an Android phone using Google Messages, visit the chat thread you want to leave. Tap the conversation’s name to bring up the Group Details menu. Within this menu is the Leave Group button. Unlike with iMessage, you can leave chats with as few as three participants.

If you want to just mute notifications, tap Notifications on the Group Details screen to bring up a window with notifications controls. This includes options to make the conversation stay Silent to prevent it from ringing your chat, and if you tap Lock Screen, a pop-up menu will give you the option to prevent notifications. Tap Don’t show notifications at all to enable.

Hide and block MMS chats on an Android phone

On an Android phone with Google Messages, follow the same steps to access options for controlling notifications. This includes visiting the MMS chat thread and then tapping either the name of the conversation or the names of the participants at the top to bring up the Group Details menu. You won’t see a Leave Group option like you did with an RCS thread, but you do get the same ability to tap Notifications to access controls for hiding the conversation. This includes the same options for turning the conversation to Silent and to select Don’t show notifications at all.

SMS vs. MMS vs. RCS

SMS stands for Short Message Service and debuted in 1992. Text messages are limited to 160 characters. MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and supports sending photos, videos or other files and messages longer than 160 characters. MMS supports a group of people chatting in a single conversation thread, while SMS can text multiple people at once but is sent as individual messages to each person. RCS, which launched 15 years ago, is short for Rich Communication Services and can show typing indicators, read receipts and has end-to-end encryption.

While cross-platform chat apps like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram have better controls for conversations, encryption and privacy, regardless of the type of phone participants are using, they don’t support SMS, MMS or RCS. That’s why the default messaging app on most phones is still widely used, even if it means that a group chat is on a less feature-filled, unsecured standard like MMS.