Last Updated on August 23, 2024
Watch Hulu Outside US
I’m sure you’ve heard of it – as Hulu is one of the most popular TV/Video sites on the planet. It’s full of great American shows and not just the two year old ones – you’ll find the very latest Simpsons, Family Guy, Glee and Americas’s Got Talent. Anyway the problem is that unless you live in the US you won’t be able to watch it at all.
Watching Hulu from Outside the US
Here’s what happens when you try and access the Hulu site – you get the following little message –
It doesn’t matter where you live, if it’s not in the USA then you’ll get this message or similar. Even if you try from Canada you’ll get exactly the same – doesn’t seem fair does it !! The problem is that the website looks up your IP address when you connect and works out where you’re based – anything non-US and you can’t access the site, you need to present a US IP address or you won’t get anywhere.
The solution as many have found is to hide your real IP address and use one that is based in the USA. You have to use a US server to route all your traffic through when accessing Hulu.
You used to be able to use a simple US proxy server for this and there were even a few free ones supported by advertising like Hotspot Shield. However unfortunately those don’t work now as Hulu is able to detect when these proxies are being used.
You need to find a service that provides a more secure connection, or if you work for a company who have a US office ask them if they have a VPN you can use !
Anyway you’ll find there are lots of companies offering proxies and VPN services online – mostly for a very reasonable cost. The one I use is actually a security program which is great for watching media sites as they have lots of servers in different countries and it’s certainly the best value – it’s called Identity Cloaker.
It’s very easy to use – here’s the screen where you select the proxy server to use –
It’s very easy to use – whenever you need to hide your IP address, you fire it up and simply click on the server you need – in this case for Hulu, you need a US based one. Identity Cloaker has servers in the UK, Canada, USA, France, Germany, Italy, Australia and a few others.
If you go back to the Hulu site you’ll go straight in and be able to watch the shows without any problem. There’s a very good video demonstrating the process on YouTube here, this uses a different program called Overplay which also works well.
I currently though use Identity Cloaker all over the world – for BBC IPlayer and ITV when outside the UK and for the US sites when I’m at home. It’s well recommended, the servers are really fast and you can even run the program from a USB key if you use different computers when travelling – try the 10 Day Trial Here to check it out first.
If you want to see a post on how to use it watch BBC Iplayer – this might help you – BBC Iplayer Abroad 2012