Nothing appears more like the antithesis of a connected global internet than restricting access to content by location, but many content companies remain attached to geoblocking on audio and video streams.
If you are based in the US and want to watch BBC iPlayer for the latest Doctor Who episode, or are based in the UK and want access to US Netflix or HBO to have a wider selection of films and TV shows available to you then you will have likely come across the frustrating message of “this content is not available in your country”.
There is a strong argument that these restrictions push people towards piracy, as everyone across the globe wants to watch films or television shows as soon as they come out and not have to wait weeks or even months for their local services to catch up.
However, often there is no need to turn to the like of The Pirate Bay, as proxies let you appear like you are located in another country.
For example, before streaming an episode, the US internet television service Hulu checks your IP address and determines whether you are based in the US and allowed access or based somewhere else like the UK or Canada, where they do not offer their services. This means that it is relatively trivial to appear as if you are viewing from somewhere else by tunnelling through a proxy with a server (and therefore an IP address) in that country.
Proxies have become much more user friendly over time, with the likes of Tunnelbear and Hotspot Shield allowing you to appear as if you were in another country with a single switch after you install their software on your PC or mobile device.
However, now there are even solution to get around geoblocking without the need to install anything on your PC or mobile device at all – where users only need to change their DNS servers. Many people choose to use Google’s public DNS servers (8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4) rather than those from their ISP anyway, and the process is the same to use https://www.smartdnsproxy.com proxy to unblock websites – with DNS servers selected either directly on the router or on each individual device.
Using these proxies is generally less than $5 per month and gives you access to all services around the world as if you were a local resident, including BBC iPlayer, Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Pandora, and many more.
Photograph by Matthew Keys