Traveling the world is great. I’ve been on the road for about 8 years now, stopping by and living in various countries around the world. The one thing I’ve learned however, is that The US is pretty much the best place to access the Internet. Yes, I’m American, and no I’m not a muscle-pumped all-Amurrikan patriot. But it is true that the Internet is American truly is awesome compared to other countries. Not only do we have fewer sites blocked that other countries, we have access to more sites than other places. Websites like Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, and other types of media, software, and interactive online goodies just aren’t available outside The US. Sometimes is because of local restrictions, and sometimes its because the US blocks foreign IPs. Either way, you can access this content, no matter where you are with some sites that unblock other sites.
If you run into some public networks that block sites with firewalls, a simple proxy can be your solution. Open proxies are widely available, and you can used them directly with your normal browser. On your phone or computer, open up your browser and find the manual proxy settings. They’re probably in Tools>Options area somewhere. Though finding a reliable open proxy server is a bit of a task sometimes, once you do, connecting to it and redirecting your traffic to a network outside the one you’re currently on is as easy as typing in an IP address and port number where it tells you to.
If you find that The USA is blocking your IP address (as with Hulu, Netflix, and Pandora), you may find that proxies don’t work. These site are able to identify and block proxies for a couple of reasons. One, they can stop a lot of Internet piracy this way, and two, they can limit the amount of users on the site, thus increasing the connection speed for users in The US. To get around this block, you’re going to have to use a VPN. VPNs are more stealthy, and more secure, so they’ll get you past more firewalls.
Lastly, if you’re blocked by government censorship, as you may find in many countries in South America, Africa, The Middle East, and Asia (basically outside of North American and Europe), you will also need to use a virtual private network (VPN). Though you may have been looking specifically for free sites that unblock other sites, in the case of bypassing government backed Internet censorship, the fee for a VPN service is a small price to pay for your Internet security. A VPN can keep your location, IP identity,and other personal information sent/received over any network PRIVATE. VPNs are designed to resist even direct hacks, and are used by many government organizations and large companies to keep hackers or other organizations from spying on private information.