3 Ways to Bypass Geo-Blocking With Your Smartphone

There’s nothing worse than traveling overseas and having your vacation ruined by not being able to access your favorite content online.

12:44 26 August 2020

As different countries have different laws, you might encounter what’s referred to as geo-blocking, a form of online censorship. But don’t panic quite yet! In today’s post, we’re going to take a look at what it is and suggest 3 proven ways on how you can bypass it.

 

What is geo-blocking?

 

Certain countries, for example, frown upon what they consider to be ethically-questionable or illegal content in general. As such, they may prevent you from accessing online totalizators or even Netflix or movie streaming websites. In an attempt to prevent its residents from accessing any kind of content they disapprove of, they will utilize geo-blocking, which is a virtual barrier to access. Call it censorship if you will, but without the right know-how, bypassing it will not be an easy task.

 

If you’ve run into one of these barriers, the following methods will help you find a way around it in no time:

 

1. Connect through a VPN

 

A virtual private network (or VPN for short) is a turnkey solution for being able to access geo-restricted content you can use anywhere across the globe. The reason why it works lies in the fact that it changes your IP address so it appears to be coming from another part of the world. This will allow you to fly under the radar and enjoy your favorite content just as you’d normally be able to. In addition to that, most VPN providers allow you to pick from a list of regional IP addresses, which makes it easy to change your IP to any country of preference.

 

2. Type in the website’s IP address directly

 

When navigating the web, most of the users think in terms of typing in the domain address that starts with www and usually ends with .com. While this is a completely legitimate and most practical way to access a website, it’s by no means the only one. What many don’t realize is that you can do the same by typing in the website’s IP address directly – the only catch is knowing how to obtain it beforehand. You can do this by opening up your command prompt and typing in “tracert” (without quotes) followed by the domain name of your choice. More often than not, online censorship will restrict access to domain addresses but leave out the direct IP path untouched.

 

3. Use a smart DNS

 

If you are not particularly fond of online censorship, you can also replace your default DNS provider with a custom one. Compared to using a VPN, this comes with its share of pros and cons. Speed, for instance, is a definite plus in this regard. This is because VPNs use their own network as sort of a middleman between you and the content you want to access. Since custom DNS providers use a different methodology, this results in faster loading speeds. On the flipside, using a custom DNS provider will not shield your privacy from the prying eyes of the internet service provider or the government. So if you have any reason to hide your online activity (this could be due to a myriad of reasons that are by no means limited to doing something illegal), using a VPN is probably a better choice.

 

Conclusion

 

Now you know 3 simple ways on how to access geo-restricted content from any part of the world. Enjoy your newfound knowledge and may you have a trip of a lifetime!