Obscure web browser geo-location question...

[avramd]

Hey Everyone,

This amusingly is a real-life "Asking for a friend..." question - except the friend is my mom, so it's "Asking for family..."

My parents winter in a remote area of Mexico (i.e. not a resort or beach area). Their streaming services don't work there due to licensing arrangements enforced with geo-location. They have a VPN, but the streaming giants block VPNs too.

I know there are browser extensions that more directly fake your location to the server, but I don't have any recent experience with them - I don't know if they specifically work with the popular paid streaming services, and I don't know how to tell which (if any) are not scams.

Can anyone here recommend a way to present yourself to Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu as being in the US (when you are not) that meets the following criteria:

• Is free or very cheap
• you really trust to be safe, not a trojan or any otherwise "cure is worse than the disease" situation

At the risk (ok guarantee) of being redundant, just clarifying that this is only so they can get content they are actually already paying for anyway. Obviously I can google for services like this, but it is nearly impossible to distinguish scams without a recommendation from somebody I specifically otherwise have an independent reason trust.

I feel like what I really need to do is set up a VPN server in their house in Maine, except of course they shut off their internet when they are in Mexico. Or I could set it up in my house, but then their streaming would consume my bandwidth and data allocation. Also, I don't want to become a VPN provider.

[Jamie]

When I lived in China I used a vpn to get through the Great Firewall and later in Taiwan to get streaming services. Netflix and other streaming services worked, but were not seamless. Sometimes the bandwidth I could get was too narrow or Netflix/Hulu were winning the vpn war for a short period and blocked the vpn. On the other hand, Popcorntime worked flawlessly. I use Torguard now. I’ve used ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Pure VPN in the past. The free vpns didn’t work or only sporadically.

[SemiSalt]

I asked a similar question on a Q&A site last spring when I wanted to see a particular BBC documentary. The consensus was that IP spoofing doesn't work anymore because the content providers have closed it off somehow.

I think that technically it can be done by streaming the content to the home PC and watching the home PC via a remote desktop product such as the ones listed here: https://tinyurl.com/yyk2st53 I've used GoToMyPC, and it's pretty easy, but I doubt it would be satisfactory for TV viewing. You are actually seeing a picture of the home PC's screen with a certain pixel count so image quality is not so great. I also doubt that the connection between somewhere in the US and rural Mexico are going to be smooth.

[avramd]

Jamie - do you have recent experience with any of these VPNs actually working with Netflix or Amazon Prime?

I just read up on TorGuard, I think I'm going to give it a try. Would you like to send me a referral code or link or however they do that, so you can get the affiliate credit? It sounds pretty impressive, and doesn't really cost anymore than PIA, which is what I'm currently using.

In other news. I kinda feel like Private Internet Access should just go all the way and change its name to Private Internet & Torrent Access, or PITA, which more accurately describes what it's like to use it with BitTorrent.

When I lived in China I used a vpn to get through the Great Firewall and later in Taiwan to get streaming services. Netflix and other streaming services worked, but were not seamless. Sometimes the bandwidth I could get was too narrow or Netflix/Hulu were winning the vpn war for a short period and blocked the vpn. On the other hand, Popcorntime worked flawlessly. I use Torguard now. I’ve used ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Pure VPN in the past. The free vpns didn’t work or only sporadically.

[Jamie]

Jamie - do you have recent experience with any of these VPNs actually working with Netflix or Amazon Prime?

I just read up on TorGuard, I think I'm going to give it a try. Would you like to send me a referral code or link or however they do that, so you can get the affiliate credit? It sounds pretty impressive, and doesn't really cost anymore than PIA, which is what I'm currently using.

In other news. I kinda feel like Private Internet Access should just go all the way and change its name to Private Internet & Torrent Access, or PITA, which more accurately describes what it's like to use it with BitTorrent.

When I lived in China I used a vpn to get through the Great Firewall and later in Taiwan to get streaming services. Netflix and other streaming services worked, but were not seamless. Sometimes the bandwidth I could get was too narrow or Netflix/Hulu were winning the vpn war for a short period and blocked the vpn. On the other hand, Popcorntime worked flawlessly. I use Torguard now. I’ve used ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Pure VPN in the past. The free vpns didn’t work or only sporadically.

No recent experience. TorGuard seems to has an affiliate system, but no referral code system.