How to Watch Hulu Around the World

For all sorts of complicated legal and contractual reasons, Hulu is not officially available to users outside of the United States. Hulu detects your foreign IP adress when you connect to their website and blocks access to content. A message pops us with "Sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed from within the United States".

But according to GigaOM a free VPN service called Hotspot Shield (HSS) allows you to change your IP adress to an American one, fooling Hulu.

How does it work? Well, VPN stands for “virtual private network,” so when Hotspot Shield is turned on your web connection is encrypted. More importantly, it also replaces your IP address with one from Hotspot Shield, which is based in the U.S. The idea is to protect your browsing from online snoops, but this little side effect means that as far as Hulu knows, you’re as American as apple pie.

All you have to do is download the client, which works for both PCs and Macs, and you’re ready to go. It’s a lot less complicated and appears much more reliable than relying on proxy servers.

I've just tried it. It works for Hulu, but I'm unable to watch TV shows on ABC, I get the usual message: "Only viewers within the United States can watch these full length episodes". I tried disconnecting and reconnecting HotSpot Shield, but it still sees my connection as from outside the US. However it works for NBC TV shows, I can watch.

I have a feeling this is a good thing that's not going to last as soon as NBC and Hulu figure out how ABC sees through HSS.

emily | 7:48 AM | Technology |
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