Whether you are an ex-pat who is missing TV shows from home, an enthusiast who loves to watch shows in their original language, or a fan who wants to watch shows as soon as their air, you may or may not be able to do that over the Internet depending on your location in the world. It does not really matter if you are trying to watch the latest TV shows on Hulu, listen to Pandora Internet Radio, or use Netflix: if you are not in the right location, you are blocked from using these excellent services.
We have covered tools and services in the past that let you circumvent these regional restrictions. One of the latest to enter the market is Tunlr, a free service that supports a variety of streaming services, not U.S. based and non-U.S. based.
As you can see, a big list of popular services. The technology used is slightly different from virtual private networks that you may have used in the past to access these services. While still a proxy at its core, Tunrl asks you to change your DNS servers to theirs to access those contents.
Tunlr does not provide a virtual private network (VPN). Tunlr is a DNS (domain name system) unblocking service. We’re using sophisticated technologies (a.k.a. the Tunlr Secret Sauce ?) to re-adress certain data envelopes, tricking the receiver into thinking the envelope originated from within the U.S. For these data envelopes, Tunlr is transparently creating a network tunnel from your location to our U.S.-based servers. Any data that’s not directly related to the video or music content providers which Tunlr supports is not only left untouched, it’s also not even routed through Tunlr.
The core benefit of this approach is speed. Tunlr does not have to maintain a huge server farm to cope with huge bandwidth requirements. It is still recommended to change the DNS server back to their original values after accessing those contents.
For speed, stability, privacy and security reasons we do not recommend to permanently set your DNS addresses to Tunlr. Setting your DNS permanently to Tunlr also puts a heavy strain on Tunlr’s network infrastructure.
On Windows, you can use a program like DNS Changer for that. You need to add the Tunlr information to the config file of the program, and can then use the program interface to switch to Tunrl, and restore the original DNS afterwards.
The project website offers instructions on how to change the DNS server on various desktop and mobile operating systems, as well as gaming systems.
You are probably asking yourself where the catch is. Probably the biggest limitation is the no-guarantee of service, as the operators state that there is no guarantee that their service will be up 24/7. Another limitation is lack of support other than directly when you are on the website.
The main benefit of Tunlr over vpn based solutions is speed. You can enjoy TV and music streams without buffering issues or other issues that interrupt the streams, provided of course that your Internet connection is fast enough.? All in all? a great service that you should definitely try out if you are interested in any of these streaming video and audio services. (via Caschy)
Access US-Only Services Like Hulu, ABC Or Pandora With UltraVPNUse Hotspot Shield to access US-only websites like Hulu and Pandora
Access Hulu from outside the United States
Access Pandora from outside the USA
Access Pandora without a proxy
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ using the icons below.
About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Saturday June 2, 2012 -
Tags:hulu, pandora, vpn
You are here: Home ? The Web ? Tunlr: Access Hulu, Pandora, Netflix from Blocked Locations
Click on the following link(s) to read more about The Web
