How to Watch Movies Online Wherever You Are In The World
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How to Watch Movies Online Wherever You Are In The World
Whether you’re traveling for business or pleasure, at the end of a jam-packed day, you want to be able to head back to wherever you’re staying and relax by watching a great movie on your device. But this isn’t always as easy as it sounds! We take a look below at how geoblocking restrictions can prevent you from accessing the content you want, why they’re used, and - most importantly - how to bypass them.
What Is Geoblocking?
Geo-blocking is deployed by either governments or corporate bodies to prevent people, in some cases, from accessing content dependent on where they are located in the world.
If you attempt to access a site with these types of restrictions in place, you will likely get an error message advising you that the content isn’t available in your region; you may even not realize you’ve been geo-blocked, as you’ll be automatically redirected to the site that’s relevant to your region.
An example of geoblocking is the restriction of the BBC’s iPlayer service to those living within the UK; if you try to access this platform from outside the UK, you’ll be unsuccessful and receive an error message.
Why Is Geoblocking Used?
There are two main reasons that content is geo-blocked. The first is where governments wish to restrict their citizens’ access to content outside of their geographical borders, and the second is where it is used by companies to remain compliant with their licensing and contractual obligations. In terms of the former, some countries have much more severe restrictions in place than others; the UK and USA, for example, have relatively relaxed restrictions when it comes to geoblocking. An example of the latter is major streaming services, such as Netflix, which are legally obligated to ensure that viewers in one region can’t access the same content as those in another part of the world.
Is Geo Blocking Legal?
In most countries, geoblocking is a legal practice. However, some regions have tried to take a stand on what’s considered to be ‘unjustified’ cases of geoblocking, and this is likely to continue as consumers demand free access to content, regardless of geographical location.
How To Bypass Geo Blocking
So, now we’ve covered what geoblocking is and how it’s used, it’s time to talk about how you can get around these restrictions to watch movies online wherever you happen to be in the world.
There are a number of ways to do this, but your best option by far is to use a VPN - a virtual private network. If you want further information on the different types of VPN packages available, their features, and the prices of each, compare the leading options here.
A VPN can get around most geoblocks as it effectively ‘masks’ your device’s IP address. The IP address tells the site you’re trying to access where in the world it’s located and is the key to how a geoblock is triggered. If you can trick the site into thinking that you're attempting to access it from another country than the one you’re actually in (the one served by the site), you can bypass the restriction and start enjoying your film.
Some of the major streaming services - like Netflix - have taken action in recent years to prevent people from bypassing their geoblocking restrictions using VPNs by disallowing VPNs to access their site at all. However, there are already many new VPNs on the market designed specifically to get around this issue, and that can be easily installed and deployed to watch the movies you want to.
Installing a VPN is an inexpensive and easy task; you could be up and running within minutes. When choosing your VPN, however, be sure to select one that has a high server coverage: the more countries that have a server, the more likely it is you’ll be able to access films from a range of different regions without stumbling into any blocks.
There are alternatives to using a VPN to bypass geo blocking. You could use a proxy server or a Smart DNS tool to hide your device’s location. However, neither of these options is as reliable or as secure as using a VPN.
Other Benefits Of Using a VPN
Finally, it’s important to bear in mind that other benefits come with using a VPN on top of its being a handy way to get around geo-blocked content.
For example, the advanced encryption used by a VPN to connect to a server makes it exponentially more secure than a standard internet connection. In the highly unlikely event that a VPN gets hacked, all the cybercriminals would discover would be fragments of encoded information that would make no sense.
For this reason, using a VPN is vital when accessing the internet via a public connection to keep your personal information and banking data safe and to prevent prying eyes from snooping on your transactions.
Given that many VPNs are relatively inexpensive to run, this is a small price to pay for the benefits and peace of mind that using this type of connection delivers.
