about mark
Mark has been a journalist, tech evangelist and a free tech support guy since 1984 on his Tandy 1000, surfing the ARPAnet. He can be reached here
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October 2009 Newsletter
Question: How do you unblock Hulu from the UK?
October 5, 2009 by Mark
Hi Mark,
I'm an American living in England for the next 6 months and I have a real big problem. Huge problem. Forget global warming, because this trumps the heck out of that. My Hulu wont work here in LONDON. what's up with that. Why can't I seem to get it to work? netflix nada, pandora same deal.
I have a Mac and PC at school... Please, can you help me out!
Thanks,
Sarah
answer:
You've run into a problem that most people never realize exist, unless you happen to live in a foreign country (poor you!).
However, this past summer, while chaperoning my daughters on a lovely trip through Eastern Europe with their choir group, I unfortunately encountered the same problem. I never realized how dependent I had become on streaming Netflix movies (my drug of choice) until right then when I couldn't get them.
Your Computer's Location Country Code: US
Why it doesn't work: The issue here has to do with copyright control.
These new video and music sites have complicated arrangements with the copyright holders to be able to get the content they use for their websites, complicated inasmuch as they block all traffic outside the US.
How does a website know where I am, you may ask?
Websites rely on a computer's IP Address for location information. Your computer's location, or, rather your ISP, is available to any website and they have the technology to block certain countries. For example, websites see your location as US --even though it might not get it exactly correct, it is still good enough to block restrict your access.
To solve my connection problem, I remembered a workaround that I had discovered a couple years ago when our company made a move to encrypt all our data following a hacking leak. We all had to start using a service called VPN, Virtual Private Network, which is a type of date encryption. Anyway, the trick I discovered was a side-effect of using this service: It gives you a US based IP wherever you and your computer happen to be in the world. Once you have your VPN set up you can continue to surf the web as you normally would... except in this case all the sites you want will suddenly be UNLOCKED. VPN is also broadband fast, so you will never notice a difference when streaming videos. That's the part that makes it worthwhile-- otherwise, it wouldn't be worth the trouble to me if it couldn't stream movies quickly enough and in HD quality!
VPN is the only tool available at the moment to unblock all these sites-- Hulu, Netflix and Pandora radio-- from the UK, Canada and beyond!.
Here is a link to VPN. Let us know what you think by posting and comments or questions below.
Mark Andrews
Comments
By: Mark | October 5, 2009
Hey All... I'm opening up the comments for this month's Newsletter so that you can ask questions or share your experiences too.
By: mickey | October 25, 2009
Mark, is there any way I can get something like this for free
@mickey Good Question. Here is my answer. The answer is yes and no. If you happened to have access to an American IP address, you can go to your browser settings and click HTTP referrer settings, then click modify DNS settings and then input the IP address in hex form (first block: secondblock: thirdblock: etc. to :6th block)... The only problem is that you have to update this everytime you reopen the browser program and also the free IP probably will not be quick enough for online video.
By: rodKnee | October 26, 2009
Thanks, working great in US.
By: Joe99 | October 28, 2009
Anyone want to share a VPN account with me?
@Joe99: I can't recommend doing this unless you are sure you don't mind sharing your browsing info...
By: kampervan79 | October 28, 2009
Quick question-- is there a way to watch the BBC streaming service, Iplayer from the US?
By: Steven| October 29, 2009
Thanks, another one I want to recommend cause it's great is www.strongvpn.com, they are really cheap and reliable. Can't say that for most things :). 5 stars so far for streaming.
By: kate8 | December 10, 2009
What else am I missing from US tv? Does Hulu.com pretty much cover it?
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