Hotspot Shield Grants Hulu Access For Everyone? Sort Of...

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://hotspotshield.com/' target='_blank'>http://hotspotshield.com/</a><br /><br /></div><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com//dht/auto/1237827073.usr1.gif" style="border: 0; float: left;" /><em>"Public networks (both wired and wireless) are great. After all, what would life be without connecting while at airports, hotels and coffee shops? However, the danger to your personal data exists even if you connect to a fee based open network. Your passwords, credit card numbers, and any data you send can be seen and associated with you personally. Standard antivirus software won't protect you as this threat is on the network, not your laptop or iPhone. That's why AnchorFree is pleased to offer Hotspot Shield. Our application keeps your Internet connection secure and anonymous on public networks."</em></p><p>I heard about about <a href="http://hotspotshield.com/" target="_blank">Hotspot Sheild</a> last week as a method for watching Hulu content outside the USA - it's a free VPN solution with servers located in the USA, so for all intents and purposes, your browser is inside the USA when accessing online content. The installation does a couple of somewhat concerning driver installs that pops up a scary-looking warning from Windows Vista, but I was installing it inside a virtual machine so I didn't particularly care. I'm not a security expert, but Windows Defender didn't flag anything, so I suspect the program is safe.</p><p>After I got it installed, I gave it a test and could definitely tell my connection was being routed through another server. With Hulu specifically, I saw frequent buffering problems, but it did work. Switching Hulu to the high-quality stream made things much worse, and strangely enough pausing the show to let the buffer fill up didn't work - the buffer would fill up, then go back to zero bars. I don't know if the fact that I was running this inside a virtual machine had any impact on the performance, but it's possible. So while Hotspot Shield might work well for basic Web browsing, as a soultion for Hulu, it doesn't seem to be a good solution. Are there any VPN solutions out there, either free or low-cost, that work well with streaming media sites like Hulu?</p>

[doogald]

VPNs in general are always going to add some time to a connection to another server, as they are acting as a man-in-the-middle and are probably servicing many clients at once. It's probably all proxied, though, so that will help for the non-streaming content.

I haven't used Hotspot Shield in a while. Are they routing traffic over a TCP or a UDP connection? (If I remember right, I think that it's TCP port 443, so it will not be blocked by local firewalls. There is a local config file that should say which they use.) If it is TCP they are going to add handshaking for each packet that is just not going to help throughput, either. Anyway, a VPN that uses a UDP port should be better for streaming traffic.

[electrollama]

I'm pretty sure you can use hotspot shield as a standard VPN without using their software. The software (that gave you warnings in Vista) is more of a convenience than a necessity. That said, I found it unreliable for watching Hulu. Sometimes worked great, other times too slow.

I was going to recommend VforVPN which is another American VPN service that costs between 3-4$ a month... but... it seems to be down at the moment. I've never noticed them being down before, but it makes me leery to recommend them. When it works (which was always until today for me), it's fast enough for the high quality Hulu streams and doesn't insert ads like hotspot shield. They have 3 account types, I got the cheapest one.

Now if only boxee would be allowed again. I find myself never using Hulu anymore now that boxee got shut out.

[doogald]

Now if only boxee would be allowed again. I find myself never using Hulu anymore now that boxee got shut out.

It looks as if your wish has been granted.

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/03/24/boxee-alpha-boasts-api-hulu-stomping-browser-and-pandora/

[Jason Dunn]

I was going to recommend VforVPN which is another American VPN service that costs between 3-4$ a month... but... it seems to be down at the moment.

They're STILL down as of today. :eek:

[electrollama]

They're STILL down as of today. :eek:

They're finally back but I turned off the renewal for my subscription while it was down (I was on a month by month thing, not a yearly one). It seems to work perfectly again, and there's no explanation for the downtime on their site.

I might be inclined to try it again. If it weren't for the downtime, I'd recommend it, but now I'm not so sure without some kind of explanation.

[Jason Dunn]

I might be inclined to try it again. If it weren't for the downtime, I'd recommend it, but now I'm not so sure without some kind of explanation.

I sure dislike it when companies don't communicate about the problems they're having...makes me think they'd never be honest with me as a customer.