A Proxy Now isn’t Enough Canadian TV – CTV

Last Updated on August 25, 2023

I first started watching Canadian TV online a few years ago, for a couple of reasons – first a few of my friends went to live there and kept telling me how great it was.   The second was because the biggest channel CTV.CA, had some great shows which weren’t available on other online channels in the UK.  One of my favorites was called Ice Pilots about this company who flew across the Artic and you could only get it on the Canadian History channel for some reason.

I was able to watch it by selecting one of the Canadian proxy servers in my subscription to Identity Cloaker.   I don’t think that many people used the Canadian proxies, as they were always seriously fast and streamed video without as much as a stutter.   This worked by routing my connection through the Canadian proxy server which meant I appeared to have a Canadian IP address and so didn’t get blocked.

Used to work like a breeze –

This is what happens now –

candianproxy-ctv

You need to login to your Cable provider before getting access to the live streaming section of CATV, which means that a proxy is not enough any more or indeed hiding your IP address like this. It’s an interesting development and the first time I’ve seen this method used anywhere to stop geo-blocking avoidance techniques. Most companies are not actually that bothered about VPNs and proxies as long as they are seen to be doing something to block them, but perhaps this might herald a change in attitude.

The BBC for example only do single checks at the beginning of the programme which means that you can effectively disconnect the proxy after you’ve started and it will still work. They don’t currently do any real checks and blocks and even a simple proxy will work with BBC iPlayer.