If you don’t want to go through all that hassle then DNS redirectors pose an interesting alternative. Basically you’ll be able watch locked content on multiple devices – even simultaneously – simply by changing the DNS server settings on your computer, console, router, or a number of supported devices.
It’s not entirely clear to me how it works (the explanations I’ve read from these services include the words “magic” and “secret sauce”) but in a nutshell they create a network tunnel from your location to a remote server usually in the US or UK, so it appears that requests actually originate from those countries. It’s one of the easiest solutions I’ve come across and it works. The main disadvantage is that it only works for a set of supported services and players. The good news is that the list of supported services and players is usually pretty extensive and new ones are added if there’s enough demand for them.
For paid services, Unblock-us and UnoDNS are popular choices, and both offer free trials. I’ve only tried the latter which advertises faster than VPN speeds, no bandwidth caps, 256-bit encryption, among other things. From my experience it does work quite fast and it has a huge list of supported ‘channels’ offered in a premium ($4.95/mo.) or gold ($7.95/mo.) plan. They support many different devices and work on a pay-as-you-go basis. Device specific instructions for each service are available on their respective sites: Tunlr, Unblock-us, UnoDNS.
Subscribing to paid, region-locked streaming services
Any of the alternatives we’ve presented you with will let you get around region blocks and start streaming content regardless of your geographic location. It should be noted that none of these will enable free access to paid content, however. Some services like Hulu and Spotify offer free, ad-supported tiers in addition to a premium option while others strictly require a paid subscription in order to use them. Unfortunately, most – if not all – for-pay services also require that the credit card you are using to subscribe is issued in the country you’re spoofing. So even if you want to pay the monthly subscription for Hulu Plus, for example, and you’ve gone through the extra effort and expense of setting up a VPN account, you still won’t be able to give them your hard earned money. You need to jump through a few more hoops.
A prepaid Entropay virtual card can help you with that. It’s like a regular Visa except you charge it upfront using your credit card and can only spend whatever funds you have available at the moment. Here is what you need to do: So there you go, you can now access region locked services and also pay for a premium subscription with a working Visa. All in all, it will cost you a bit more but your other options are moving to another country or wait it out until content owners decide to join the new millennium and work out international licensing. It’s worth noting that you’ll still need to enter a valid country-specific physical address when registering with some services. Usually, any valid address will do, so just look up a commerce or something and use that. Lastly, please note that, knowing of this loophole, some services have decided to stop accepting Entropay, so do some research before funding your virtual card. Netflix and Hulu Plus are among those sites, but people have reported it’s still possible to work around that extra hurdle by signing up for a US Paypal account, linking it up to your Entropay account, and then use Paypal as the payment option. Easy peasy!
Technicians connecting network cable illustration by Shutterstock
