Virtual Proxy Servers......do they work?

[Anonymurse]

I’m here in a secret air base in the sunny med, and have been told about virtual proxy servers.

Apparently it is a way of making computers in the UK think you are in the UK rather than elsewhere, so you can access things such as 4 on demand, bbc iplayer etc.

Firstly has anyone got any experience of these and could recommend one? Also are they legal-ish?

Many thanks, Happy Christmas.

 

[beowulf]

My parents are ex-pat and my mum uses virtual proxy servers to access iPlayer and the ITV player to see her soaps.

She is a total IT biff so imagine my surprise when one day on the phone she started to talk to me about reassigning gateways and IP addresses when in the past she has struggled with ctrl-C, ctrl-V

Don't think there is anything illegal about it. You are not cracking a security system, you are bypassing a basic authentication mechanism. And yes - my mum is up to date with her soaps and so it seems to work.

And a Merry Christmas to you too.

 

[Belle and Sebastian]

I'm overseas as well

I'm overseas as well

How do you do it?

 

[Turn it off and on again]

Morning B&S,

I've used proxy servers when deployed to do just that and in my limited experience they are quite good. If you use Mozilla Firefox as a browser you can download a free add-on called 'Foxy-Proxy' and this will send all of your traffic via a UK address, or just your IPlayer/4OD traffic.

One thing to note though is that you will need to obtain a Proxy Server Address. If you google this it will come up with a plethora of free ones but in my experience they either didn't work or were dog slow. So I bit the bullet and paid a couple of quid for a weeks use of an address and it was much better.

It can be quite tricky to setup initially but google has all the answers, it keeps me in the job!

Hope this helps.

 

[beowulf]

I have never used a proxy but as I said my mum managed to set hers up herself and she is quite scared of computers as a rule. Although if I remember correctly she is using some kind of paid for service rather than a free one. So maybe parting with a couple of quid is the way to go?