How To Bypass Hulu US-Only Limit

By seoboy on November 4, 2011 in Web and Technology

According to Wikipedia, Hulu is a website and over-the-top (OTT) subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage. Videos available for streaming on the site are coming from from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle and more. Unfortunately, this benefit is available only within the United States. When I say United States, that doesn’t include Canada or the UK.

The multi-million question is “how do we bypass Hulu US-Only limit?” The answer: You have to make Hulu think that are you viewing its videos from within the US. I believe you already have an idea of how to do it. Yeah, right, by using proxies. When I say proxy, I’m not referring to proxy sites like HideMyAss. When I say proxy, it’s “proxy.” You won’t be paying for a subscription. You’ll just be needing your browser and and patience. We’ll be also needing some help form HideMyAss though.

Here’s how to bypass Hulu:

Go to http://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/
Choose United States in proxy country. Set speed and connection time to Fast. Uncheck PlanetLab. I usually just choose High +KA as the anonymity level but it’s your choice. I just want it that way based on my hunch. Your settings should look similar to the screenshot below. (click on the image to enlarge it.)

Choose an IP from the result. Choosing a working IP involves trial and testing but I usually pick the newest/first one as based on experience, it works.
Open Firefox (I’ll use Firefox in this tutorial, okay?). In the latest version of this browser, the menu is hidden. Press your Alt key to unhide it. Now follow this navigation: Tools >> Options >> Advanced >> Network. Click Settings and choose “Manual Proxy Configuration.”
Enter the IP address and the Port number in the HTTP Proxy field and Port fields respectively. If you took your proxy somewhere else and in this format 98.218.208.174:80, the numbers and dots before the colon symbol is the IP address and after that is the port number.
Test if your proxy works. Try loading a website then go to Hulu. If this was successful, Hulu should not show a within-Us-only limit and just allow you to watch its videos.

Note: First, like I said in the steps, choosing a working proxy is a trial-and-error process. Second, using proxy can slow down the loading of the site that is why you need to choose a proxy with fast speed and connection.