One of the great things about my trip to New York was being able to watch a bunch of programs on Hulu. Hulu is a great service available in the US that lets you watch current programs over the Internet. There are a bunch of great shows on offer like House, Lost, Dollhouse and other shows not yet shown in Australia like Modern Family.
Unfortunately when I got back to Australia, licensing rules and IP addresses stopped me. When you try to watch anything, you get the Hulu black screen of nada.
How to set up Hulu to watch outside the US
Firstly, do not waste your time with a free service. I spent numerous hours researching the internet and trying a bunch of different free services. Hotspot Shield, FoxyProxy and IPHider do not work. You just cannot get a connection to the US that is fast enough and Hulu is shutting down most of these free services.
Your best bet is to purchase a US Based VPN. There are numerous VPN providers out there. Some even give you the ability to switch between the US and the UK, therefore allowing you to watch the BBC iplayer too!
As an added plus, a VPN will also help you get around this ridiculousness Internet filter that is being proposed by Communications Minister Senator Conroy. According to Adam Turner, writing for PC Authority:
“…the easiest way to access restricted content is to mask your location using a US-based Virtual Private Network. A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel from your computer to the VPN provider, who then connects you to the internet.”
(Thanks to Anthill for this quote)
Steps to watch Hulu in Australia
1. Check your internet connection speed. I have the Bigpond cable Ultimate and sometimes it still results in stuttery play. Go to www.speedtest.net and check your download speed to LA. If you get anything below 0.5Mbps then it’s probably not going to work for you.
2. Purchase a US VPN from a reputable company. I like VPNAuthority.com because for $63/year, you get the option of using a US or UK based IP address at one time. Another upside, they do not restrict the number of times you switch between them. In the past, I used StrongVPN.com, but the switching restrictions to go between hulu and bbciplayer are prohibitive.
3. Set up your new network (Your VPN provider will have the details) and connect
4. Start watching shows!
