Regardless of which end of whatever pond you’re on, region blocked content is annoying. Whether you’re an ex-pat looking to watch reruns of The Wonder Years, or you’re hankering for a dose of Dr. Who, here’s the best (and easiest) way to get that content.
One of the big problems with streaming content overseas (or from an overzealous college campus that blocks everything) is that the landscape for doing so changes a lot. Just a few years ago you had to jump through a lot of hoops, but in most cases it’s now as simple as a using an extension or web service. First, let’s look at our favorite way of getting to the bulk of online content. Then, we’ll look at the alternatives that give you access to just about anything you want.
Update 5/29/2015: We no longer recommend Hola Better Internet, after the discovery that they sell your bandwidth to essentially run a botnet for hire.
The Easiest Method for Desktop and Mobile: TunnelBear
As we learned from Hola Better Internet, you’re much better off paying for a VPN service than trying to find a free one. To that end, we like TunnelBear because it’s cheap, supports a variety of devices, and is incredibly easy to set up.
As far as desktop apps are concerned, TunnelBear has apps for PC, Mac, and a Chrome extension that you can route your traffic through. Once you’ve signed up for an account and install the app, switching between countries to access the internet from is dead simple. Just launch the app, select the country you want to access the internet from, and TunnelBear does the rest.
In terms of pricing, TunnelBear is in line with other options out there. Each month, you get 500MB of free data. If you need more, TunnelBear offers unlimited data for $4.99/month (or if you prefer to save a little by paying in bulk, $49.99/year) on three computers or mobile devices. It does more than just change your country too, it works as a VPN does, blocks trackers, allows for private browsing, and more.
Steaming blocked content to your Android and iOS devices is a little trickier, but it’s still doable. Once you sign up for TunnelBear and install the app on your mobile device, just tap the “Country” button on the main page, and change it to where you’d like to access the internet from. Once you do, TunnelBear installs a custom profile, and all your internet traffic goes through servers in those countries. On mobile, that means you can access these servers through their web sites or through their apps. The whole process takes about 20 seconds to get working and it’s easy to turn off when you don’t need it. If you only plan on using TunnelBear on mobile, there’s a cheaper mobile-only pricing plan ($2.99/month) that you can purchase from the app itself.
For Set Top Devices: Unblock-Us
Unblock-Us has been our pick for the best way to access the Olympics every time, because it’s cheap, easy to set up, and works on basically any device that accesses your router. That means that any device you have—whether that’s a Roku, PS4, or whatever else—can get access to overseas content. The setup process is a little different for each device, but they have guides for pretty much everything you could possible want to connect. Unblock-Us has a massive list of supported services and constantly updates with guides to unblock current programs (like removing blackouts during the NHL playoffs).
Unblock-Us will run you $4.99/month, but you can check out a week long trial to make sure it works for you. You have a lot of options in this space, but Unblock-Us easily takes the cake on the number of devices it supports and solid customer service.
Alternative Methods
You have a lot of options for streaming blocked content, and depending on where you are and what services you want to access, some other methods are better than others. Here are a few more great options to choose from.
Proxmate: If you’re from outside of the U.S. and only gunning to unblock a couple of choice U.S. services, the previously mentioned ProxMate is another option. After you install the extension, you’ll get access to Pandora, Google Play, YouTube, and others no matter where you are, but you’ll need to pay for premium access to sites like Netflix and BBC. You’ll need to manually install the extension in Chrome, but once it’s installed you’re good to go.
Use Any VPN You Want: Another option is to set up a VPN to reroute your traffic through servers in other counties. Any VPN will do (although you might want to stick with one of these five). If you subscribe to a Usenet service like GigaNews, you might even get a VPN for free as part of the package. This keeps your data a lot more private than the above services, but it will likely slow down your connection.
Hotspot Shield: Hotspot Shield works just like TunnelBear, but isn’t quite as dead simple to use. If you’re not a fan of TunnelBear for whatever reason, Hotspot Shield is a great alternative.
Set up a Proxy Server: If a browser extension is more your style then using a proxy service is easy enough. The speeds won’t be that great, but it’s easy to shut off when you’re done. You can also try the Tor browser for a few more options.
Media Hint: Media Hint is an extension for Chrome and Firefox that automatically unblocks content you come across on Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, and Rdio. Unfortunately, it’s no longer available directly in the Chrome Store, so you’ll have to manually install it.
This should give you access to pretty much any region blocked streaming content out there for right now. As other services pop up we’ll give them a shot and update when something simpler (or more encompassing) comes along.
Photos by AdrianNunez and Kentoh.