Unlock Hulu And Bbc Iplayer In A Click With Hola

[ezzra]

excerpts from the Australia Age newspaper,

Rather than mess around with VPNs and proxy servers, Hola makes it easier than ever to watch foreign Catch Up TV services.

US Catch Up TV service Hulu is the holy grail for some people when it comes to online entertainment, particularly because you're not supposed to be able to watch it in Australia. Of course there are plenty workarounds to mask your location, such as proxy servers and US-based Virtual Private Networks. They've long been in a cat-and-mouse game with Hulu, but every time Hulu closes one loophole another seems to open.

Hola is a free service which aims to simplify the practice of geo-dodging by simply adding an on/off button to Chrome or Firefox. You'll also find standalone apps for Windows and Android. Hola has been around since late last year but is now expanding the number of sites it covers and you can probably expect it to lock horns with Hulu's lawyers soon.

Hola is primarily designed as a "web accelerator", speeding up your web access for all websites by downloading the content from other users' computers rather than directly from the original website. It also uses compression techniques to save on bandwidth, along with "patented DNS acceleration". It's a bit like P2P software, with each user sharing their cached content with everyone else. The more people using it, the faster it becomes. Content should also load faster because it's coming from someone near you rather than across the world.

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The idea of web accelerators seems a bit old-fashioned as we've all moved to broadband, but Hola's big appeal is that it also lets you bypass the geo-blocking restrictions on sites such as Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Pandora, CBS, Fox and ITV. Hola's designers are open to adding extra sites and plan to introduce the ability to customise your own list. Personally I'd like to add YouTube US, where you'll find a wide range of extra movies and TV shows which aren't available to Australian YouTube users.

At the moment the Hola Windows application offers both web acceleration and geo-dodging, while the browser plugins only offer geo-dodging and the Android app only offers web acceleration. I have to admit that talk of web acceleration makes me suspicious and there was a time when such a phrase screamed spyware, but it all seems above board.

Hola doesn't rely on a Virtual Private Network or a full proxy server. Instead it relies on a selective proxy server system which only targets specific domains. When you try to visit a page on Hulu, that request is redirected to the Hola network (not that you notice anything different on the front end). For all other internet traffic it's business as usual.

The beauty of Hola is that your other internet traffic isn't impeded in any way, nor does Hola impact on other applications. You don't need to change your IP address or DNS server, nor do you need to worry about Australian servers suddenly treating you as a foreigner. Of course if you want to geo-dodge on devices which won't run the Hola plugin, such as a media player or games console, then a DNS-based service such as Unblock Us might still be your best bet.

Hola's P2P-style design means, like BitTorrent, it can't be shut down because there's no central server to attack. The trade-off is that you're uploading content to other users, which could count towards your monthly limit, but Hola's designers claim that the bandwidth you save due to compression techniques should offset this. Using the browser plug-in to geo-dodge doesn't seem to involve sharing content with other users, so many people might not see the need to install the full desktop application. Often you only need to enable geo-dodging to start a video streaming, once it's playing you've already passed the geo-check so it will happily keep playing.

Is it legal to use Hola? That's a grey area. Some people would argue that it's more legal than using BitTorrent, although BitTorrent will still offer better picture quality and less advertising than Catch Up TV services.

Have you tried Hola? What's your preferred method of bypassing geo-blocking?

[raro]

Just tried that out...cannot see any accelartion with Hola running. Hulu is stuttering on a 9 Mbit line. BBC Iplayer didn't start at all, got a time-out error.

[harrry]

Just tried that out...cannot see any accelartion with Hola running. Hulu is stuttering on a 9 Mbit line. BBC Iplayer didn't start at all, got a time-out error.

I am getting bbc and iplayer ok today....does not work with ABC australia

Edited January 26, 2013 by harrry

[jocko]

Just tried that out...cannot see any accelartion with Hola running. Hulu is stuttering on a 9 Mbit line. BBC Iplayer didn't start at all, got a time-out error.

I am getting bbc and iplayer ok today....does not work with ABC australia

I have never tried to use a VPN so just installed hola on my nexus7 then tried to play bbciplayer and catchup TV from the UK catch up needs device to be registered so tried the that nothing happened BBC iPlayer informs you for the UK only the hola app is enabled. What am I doing wrong

All help welcome

[draftvader]

OK. Just tested the s/w app, Firefox Extension and Chrome Extension.

S/W - Nice enough, uses a P2P cache-ing technique. The downside of this is that it will use your computer and connection for data distribution when you are not using it. If you are OK with this then you will see some benefits.

FF Ext - Doesn't work for BBC iPlayer and ITVPlayer. I didn't test any other sites.

Chrome Ext - Doesn't work in SR Ware Iron so I had to install Chrome specifically for this application. I am now watching BBC iPlayer and ITV Player. I will just have to switch the Chrome icon for the Hola icon in my taskbar and I will be happy.

Nice find. All I need now is a plugin for XBMC and my wife will be SO happy (and I will be because I'll be able to watch the 6 Nations!).

[Vinny1967]

Gave it a try.Couldn't access most of the UK sites.Only Channel 4 was available and then I got the usual " this content is not available in your area" crap.A few of the US sites worked but had a lot of buffering.

[draftvader]

Update. I got the extension working in SR Ware Iron. Just sign-in to google and you will be able to install.

[draftvader]

Gave it a try.Couldn't access most of the UK sites.Only Channel 4 was available and then I got the usual " this content is not available in your area" crap.A few of the US sites worked but had a lot of buffering.

What OS and browser (including version number) are you using?

http://www.thismachine.info/

[Vinny1967]

Just using the Chrome extension and disabling the windows client works fine.Able to watch iplayer and itv player without any buffering.

[draftvader]

Just using the Chrome extension and disabling the windows client works fine.Able to watch iplayer and itv player without any buffering.

Exactly. You don't even need the Windows client for the extensions to work.

[aarn]

Brilliant, thanks for this. Getting BBC 1/2 live using linux.

Have to crack the hard nut getting live aussie TV.

Anyone got a link to 6Nations broadcast schedule?

Cheers, AA

[draftvader]

Brilliant, thanks for this. Getting BBC 1/2 live using linux.

Have to crack the hard nut getting live aussie TV.

Anyone got a link to 6Nations broadcast schedule?

Cheers, AA

BINGO! http://bbc.in/TAM7IV

[draftvader]

....and with London Pride in my local Makro I should be good to go for quite a few games. Good thing my wife likes to watch Rugby too.....now just to get my little girl into it...

[aarn]

Thx khun draftvader. Hope the beeb shows it all live, here's the fixture list http://www.rbs6nations.com/en/matchcentre/match-centre_fixtures-results.php

Cheers, AA

[tlcwaterfall]

Brilliant, thanks for this. Getting BBC 1/2 live using linux.

Have to crack the hard nut getting live aussie TV.

Anyone got a link to 6Nations broadcast schedule?

Cheers, AA

And if you do crack the hard nut of Aussie tv send me a pm please.

I particularly want live sport from Australia, miss the cricket a lot.

[A Tibble]

Awesome!

[Chicog]

Is this just Tor rebadged? If so, not surprised if there are performance problems.

[draftvader]

Is this just Tor rebadged? If so, not surprised if there are performance problems.

It is a P2P application. Essentially it creates an additional internet cache on the local machine (this is the desktop app I am talking about) and allows this "distributed internet" to serve locally. For example, if I visit the BBC website then I now have all the images at that moment on my computer. If you then visit it and I am the closest user to you then my machine serves the images, css, js, etc to you.

The browser app appears to be piggy-backing on this communication, but just "bouncing" through so it is going through a bunch of computers in the country concerned and node 1 has got rid of the IP geolocation issue for you.

That is my take from their website information. Naturally they are not sharing too much so that they can get the leap on the commercial aspect....which brings the question. Where is the money in this for them?

[JetsetBkk]

<snip>

Where is the money in this for them?

I guess "Hola Professional" will be coming along soon.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Did an extended review on Hola in another thread here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/633208-hulu-netflix-and-bbc-iplayer-without-a-vpn-solved/#entry6314084

[dinaomar]

I guess you can make your life easy and just use a one click to connect application https://www.iwasel.com/en/ to watch hulu when you are outside of USA and to open any blocked website everywhere. There are many servers. all servers are encrypted, this one worked great for me.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I guess you can make your life easy and just use a one click to connect application https://www.iwasel.com/en/ to watch hulu when you are outside of USA and to open any blocked website everywhere. There are many servers. all servers are encrypted, this one worked great for me.

This is a commercial (pay for use) VPN service -- one I've never heard or or seen any mention of before, and one whose prices aren't especially competitive.

Nor do they seem to list on their website where their various servers are located.

At any rate, a VPN service like this doesn't "open any blocked website everywhere." It does, assuming it works properly, give the user an IP address in whatever location the VPN server that they're connecting to is located.