Anyone tried Hola to unblock geo restrictions to Netflix, Hulu etc?

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steve2222

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Topic # 113714 25-Jan-2013 14:13

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/blogs/gadgets-on-the-go/unlock-hulu-and-bbc-iplayer-in-a-click-with-hola-20130124-2d8zu.html

Anyone tried Hola yet?

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Reply # 750739 25-Jan-2013 14:17

not tried it. looks similar to unblock us, but unblock us is better because it works on other devices whereas Hola does not.

Unblcok-us also offers an app you can download to your desktop to seamlessly switch on/off the DNS setting.

freitasm

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Reply # 750822 25-Jan-2013 15:38

Sure... And then people will post things like "Why is my broadband cap going so fast?"

It happened before when people installed TOR software, forgot about it and kept serving TOR users from around the world without knowing...

Having said that, I will install to see how it works.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

freitasm

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Reply # 750826 25-Jan-2013 15:43

Installed and Hulu is working fine over it...

Note when configuring the Unmblocker you should untick the YouTube because most New Zealand users have local caches for this service.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

reven

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Reply # 750834 25-Jan-2013 15:54

freitasm: Sure... And then people will post things like "Why is my broadband cap going so fast?"

It happened before when people installed TOR software, forgot about it and kept serving TOR users from around the world without knowing...

Having said that, I will install to see how it works.

At this point of their FAQ, I decided it was not for me :)

also could get caught out by the P2P law in NZ, if you're supplying some video you once watched (sure they'll probably get you for watching it originally, but still interesting).

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Reply # 750867 25-Jan-2013 16:44

reven: also could get caught out by the P2P law in NZ, if you're supplying some video you once watched (sure they'll probably get you for watching it originally, but still interesting).

I doubt it, as the copyright law tracks torrent distribution of content, not "P2P" in the sense of this.

Hola seems to be a peer to peer distributed cache for web content, which is not what rights holders are looking at.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

Behodar

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Reply # 750887 25-Jan-2013 17:08

Well, it seems to work. Hulu's doing what it says on the tin although I haven't tried Netflix yet. As for whether it'll affect anything else or chew up data, I've installed the Firefox extension so it'll only use data while Firefox is running (and it's not my primary browser; I only just installed it to try out Hola).

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Reply # 750888 25-Jan-2013 17:09

It even works with the Hulu Desktop player...

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Reply # 750890 25-Jan-2013 17:11

Is there an actual Windows app that works across the whole system? (The "Windows" link at the bottom of the page redirects to http://hola.org/mac.html so I can't actually see what Windows users see!)

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Reply # 750892 25-Jan-2013 17:13

There's an application if you want acceleration and unblocking. If you don't want to install the application then you can install the Chrome/Firefox addons for unblocking the browser only.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

steve2222

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Reply # 750893 25-Jan-2013 17:23

Home from work now so I am going to have a little play.

What originally raised my interest was just using the unblocking component given the article I referenced seems to suggest it doesn't utilise the peer to peer part and hence should not suck up more of my data cap.

The other thing that interested me (aside from it being free) is that you don't need to change your DNS settings. For me currently I tend to leave these set to UnoTelly's DNS servers and I am aware there is a theoretical risk with this as they could (if they wanted to be dishonest) redirect your web site requests to fake sites and also they can see everything you are surfing.

Initial downside appears to be limited devices for it to work on. We use an iPad 3 with UnoTelly to watch Netflix via an HDMI cable.

Anyway I will have a play and in the meantime I am very happy with the UnoTelly service (even though you pay a small bit for it).

PDAMan

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Reply # 750899 25-Jan-2013 18:08

I use ProxMate, but not with those particular sites. Works well with YouTube and other sites that geoblock New Zealand IP and its free as a Chrome plugin.

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steve2222

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Reply # 750901 25-Jan-2013 18:14

Netflix works just fine with the Chrome extension.

I see they say they will shortly introduce an ability for advanced users to write their own script to access sites not yet covered by Hola. You can email them and they will notify you when it is available.

May give NZ users a chance to obtain access to OZ channels like SBS and ABC as these are unlikely to rate highly on Hola's to do list.

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Reply # 751096 26-Jan-2013 10:19

Hulu and Netflix are both getting stuck on "Connecting" for me at the moment. Hola server down?

freitasm

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Reply # 751097 26-Jan-2013 10:21

From what I read Hola doesn't use servers, it uses other peer's connections. My guess is when you need to "unblock" they find a peers in the USA to connect to their caches.

I am watching Hulu right now to test your "Connecting" issue, and it's working just fine.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

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Reply # 751100 26-Jan-2013 10:26

What I've noticed are little things:

- If you have the client installed with "acceleration" turned on then it takes a bit of time for the proxy to start after boot. During that time your http connections won't work and return empty responses. It starts working fine after about 30 seconds.

- It seems it terminates connections when you turn WiFi on and off even if connected via ethernet.

Mauricio Freitas (Geekzone Admin, Devil's Advocate, my blog, technology disclosure)

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