How can I make my IP address appear to be from another country?

How do I make it appear that my IP address is coming from one country while I'm located in another?

I live in Germany and some websites (like Hulu or Youtube) don't work because my IP isn't in the US. How do I get around this? Do I have to use a proxy or something?

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Solution 1:

You have to Google for "free http proxy", some of the lists you get as a result classify geographically the proxies, find one of those and then choose a US located proxy.

Afterwards set your browser to use as HTTP proxy your selected proxy (what are the steps to do this depends on the browser you use). Some proxies work better than others and some just don't plain work with some big traffic sites, so you might have to try a few (unless you get a trusted proxy from a friend or company.)

Beware that all your received and submitted data could be stored and even modified in transit by a malicious proxy, you cannot trust at all the data received, or that the other party has received the data as you have sent it.

For this reason I'm reluctant to recommend a particular server or list of servers, just use the search term in Google and see for yourself which one you'd trust.

For HULU, I don't think that trust would be much of a problem, but if you forget to disable the proxy and then navigate to your bank disaster might ensue... so be warned.

Aditionally, you will almost certainly be breaking the site terms and possibly some laws (I'm not a lawyer).

Solution 2:

You could also try Anonymouse.org.

When you go to the website, you just click your language, (English or German), and then enter the URL of the website you want to visit. It works to get to Hulu, and this website is also a handy tool if you want to visit a website that a filter is blocking.

As Vinko said, you will be breaking the TOS, and probably some laws.

Solution 3:

Adding a proxy will definitely slow down the browsing, especially if the proxy you use is used a lot.

TOR is an option, but there are many others.

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis

Solution 4:

the best thing to do is to get shell account somewhere in US and do

ssh -D 1080 IP.IP.IP.IP

then configure your browsers to go through 127.0.0.1:1080 (SOCKS4)

Solution 5:

There is an article explaining exactly how to do this on Lifehacker:

IP Hider Accesses Hulu, Other US-Only Content from Outside the US