For several days Hotspot Shield can no longer be used to access Hulu by users leaving outside US. It seems that Hulu technicians keep an eye on Hotspot Shield and block the IPs used by this free VPN service. So, it’s time to look for alternatives.
The solution to unblock Hulu is simple: change your IP address to a US one. It’s a little bit more than that as you need enough coonection speed to be able to watch the shows decently.
I am going to list several solutions that are able to unblock Hulu, both free and paid. You have try several of them in order to find the one that works best for you.
Free Hotspot Shield alternatives
- Ultrasurf – well-know free hide IP solution. A new version has beed released several days ago. The proxies are fresh and can be used to unblock Hulu.
- AceVPN - invite-only free VPN service. The service is new and provides good speed.
- NotMyIP – new hide IP tool. The speed of the proxies is decent.
- GPass - can be used to access Hulu or any other site that is restricted outside the US.
- Alonweb – free VPN that can be used as Hotspot Shield alternative (Update 2/7/2010: Not available anymore!)
Subscription-based Hotspot Shield alternatives
- IP Hider – one of my favorite hide IP tools. I have just tested it and it works well to unblock Hulu.
- Hide-My-IP 2009 – some proxies seem to be blocked by Hulu, but there are several that work.
- Anonymity Gateway – simple and effective solution to unblock Hulu.
- Freedur – new and very nice tool to get a US IP address.
- StrongVPN – well know VPN service with a lot of US IP addresses available.
Do you know other Hotspot Shield alternatives?
Update 9/14/2009: Another Hotspot Shield alternative is now available, HideIPVPN. Checked today and unblocked Hulu.
Update 2/8/2010: InvisibleBrowsingVPN is also a good solution to unblock Hulu.
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7 Comments
Ultrasurf didn’t work for me with Hulu. The video didn’t load and I got an error message. I think it has to do with the speed. Thanks for the list, though. I’ll have to try them out!
I just watched a couple movie trailers on Hulu using Hotspot Shield with no problem. BTW, I’m located in Germany.
well gpass seems to be blocked here in europe.it doesn’t work for months now.a feed back from elsewhere would be helpfull.
alonweb has no us ip.only holland and panama.
and ace vpn is not public.and maybe when it will go public will be paid..
so really free options are rare.
any other solution to suggest would be nice.
@Chris – That is great news. Probably Hotspot Shield has changed its IPs.
@xatzaras – Indeed, free options are rare and the existing ones have serious issues.
Unfortunately, I don’t know other free hide IP tools that provide US IP address.
Anyone tried CyberGhost VPN?
I was browsing around for alternate ways to watch hulu. It looks like the only decent way to do it, is to purchase a private VPN account. I highly doubt hulu can ban them all. I purchased mine from http://www.hidemynet.com , they provide UK and US servers currently, so I can also login to the UK server to access online video offered in the UK
. Like, Iplayer, Channel 4 on demand, bbc, etc. And it’s only 5$/month, beats having to deal with the hassles of using hotspot shield (which is now banned anyway).
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