Here’s an interesting app (here) for looking at content/websites normally blocked if you’re in Australia. The app creates a VPN which effectively changes your IP address making it appear that you’re residing in the US. It’s not new – just type ‘web proxy’ into Google and you will find hundreds of sites that do a similar thing.
Why do we need this? Well, sites like the BBC, Hulu and ABC – have content restricted to users from their country so if you have the wrong IP, you get effectively blocked.
IP blocking is frustrating for consumers and industry folks – even we can’t even see some of the sites we’ve built once they are deployed elsewhere without having our IP’s whitelisted / unblocked at the other end.
Whilst this might look like good news, don’t pop the Champaign just yet – proxy servers tend to be very slow, and remember everything you do is being re-routed through a third party. It’s not for everyone. Ultimately we still need the powers that be to figure out a global distribution model for content before we can truly pop the cork.
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