Get Hulu in The UK

Most people aren't aware that you can get Hulu in The UK. Lots of British people know about it - it's a very famous service world-wide these days, but usually you can't get access to the site from outside The USA. I'm American, but I travel a lot to The UK to hang out and visit friends from college. I've also got a Hulu account and was very surprised back in the day that Hulu didn't allow you to stream video from over there. I'm even more surprised now that you still can't get Hulu in The UK without a VPN.

A VPN, for those of you that don't know is a bit of technology that lets you change your IP address. Usually, Hulu can stop you from watching their video by checking your IP address. When they see that your IP (this is all done automatically of course) is not from The USA they block you and you get that famous black background with white writing, "We're sorry...". So basically, you sign into the VPN and your IP address (as long as the VPN server is in The USA) becomes American. Then all you have to do to get Hulu in The UK is to type the Hulu URL into your browser, find a video you want, and you're good to go. Easy, right?

The kicker for some people is that there's a monthly fee. I know it seems weird to have to pay for a free service, so a VPN is not for everyone. For me it's great because I can sign up for three months in the summer, then quit my account, and sign up again the next year. It's not like you have to sign up for a whole year. Some even let you just do a month of service. In general, if you order just a month it's going to cost about fifteen or twenty USD, but if you do a year or two VPN contract you can get VPN access for about five dollars a month. For me, the extra few dollars a month is totally worth being able to get Hulu in The UK over the summer because I don't get British TV AT ALL.

This is also good for people with Netflix accounts, and even good for someone who watches BBC iPlayer. The thing is that with an American IP address you can access your Netflix account as well. And if you're outside The UK and want to watch BBC iPlayer, all you have to do is to find a service with VPN servers in The UK. Some companies even have servers in multiple locations, meaning that if you're in neither country, you can sign into a USA server and watch Hulu, and when you're done, sign into a VPN server in The UK and watch BBC iPlayer.

If you're going to use a VPN to get Hulu in The UK, or to watch any video streaming service I wouldn't suggest anything too scrappy or you're going to have to wait for video to buffer. the VPN I use is about ten dollars a month and it does fine. I have 8 server locations across the US and two in The UK. More more locations you'll pay more, and the opposite is also true - fewer locations means cheaper price usually. It's nice to be able to switch around just inc case there's problem with the server that day.

So until Hulu decides to go international (how long have they been saying they're going to?) I'm going to get Hulu in The UK with my VPN.