Have you ever experienced situations of not being able to access some media content of specific sites, just because you’re out of the country that it is available in? This might be a very hard situation to deal with, especially when you’re anxiously hoping or waiting to watch your favorite videos on these websites. Such situations happen due to the presence of geo-blocking on these sites. Now you may have never really heard the term ’geo-blocking’ before, but I’m sure you’ve faced the situation many times earlier. Yet, just because geo-blocking doesn’t allow you to watch or view the contents because of your geographical location, it doesn’t mean you’re bound with this situation. Instead, there are quite a few easy and effective ways you can bypass through the geo-blocking of such sites. But before you go ahead and learn about such solutions, it’s important first to understand how geo-blocking actually works.

How It Works:

Since every computer is registered with its own and different IP addresses, it is the main source that helps websites to discover where they should send their website info. It works when you visit a website, the IP address of your computer is sent to the website’s server so that it can recognize the location where it will send all the information. This IP address which is delivered to you by your internet service provider shows the world your exact location while giving them the ease to track you easily. Because of the location availability through your IP address, broadcasters decide whether you can view their content or not; based on your location. This way, if you try to access or connect to a service that doesn’t include your IP address in the allowed list, they will simply block you. Now even if you’re accessing a paid service like Netflix, you still might not be able to access the same content from different countries.

Why Is It Used

Online streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu or sometimes even YouTube uses geo-blocking so that they can minimize their content for every region. This restriction is mainly based on each user’s geographical location, so that they can be able to launch specific contents in just a suitable or specific market or country; like the U.S. This way, in order to meet all of their licensing terms, these sites either don’t provide their content outside a specific country or apply their restrictions according to their user's region. But this isn’t all that geo-blocking helps them in doing, really! Instead, mostly online streaming sites also apply geo-blocking on some or all of their content in order to charge differently from different markets. This change in charges is also based on the geographical regions of the users.

How to Get Through:

When it comes to getting through the geo-blocking of these sites, there are three different ways to get through.

1 . The simplest solution to it is to use a proxy. That’s because the only way you can get past the restriction applied through geo-blocking is by hiding or masking your IP address. Now it isn’t just easy, but also very popular to make use of a proxy server in this matter, because it fools the receiving server while passing your request to them by masking your IP address. Yet, it isn’t completely secure to make use of.

2 . Another method for users is the peer-to-peer network, for accessing geographically blocked content. Such P2P Network uses other nodes idle resources in the network while routing your traffic in the network. But similar to using a proxy, the P2P network might also bypass you through geoblocking while keeping you caught in its unsecured downsides alongside.

3 . Now if you’re looking for an alternative that is more safe and secure in comparison to both these geo-block bypassing methods, using a VPN can be the best way. But it’s important to look through online reviews from the website and find the most suitable and trustworthy VPN server for yourself. This way, you can ensure that your IP address is hidden, while it cleverly gets you through the website with a private network provided by the VPN. This private network will also keep your identity anonymous and data are hidden.

So even if you’re stuck in a geographical location that you can’t get out of instantly, and that’s making you miss out on your favorite media content, it doesn’t have to remain the same. Because geo-blocking might come as quite a common thing, you would have faced every now and then while viewing your favorite media content; it’s time you make use of suitable solutions for it. This way, nothing can come in-between you and your favorite media content, at all!