Imagine you decide to watch the characteristics of a certain musical instrument or home appliance sold in Canada. But when you enter the site of the store that sells it, you suddenly only see it display a message that it doesn’t work in your country. Congratulations: you have just encountered region-blocked content. With a Canada proxy site, though, you can get there. Let’s find out how it works.
Why Does Content Get Region-Blocked?
Why would a site owner want its content only available in certain countries or even one country? There are various reasons. For example:
- A store that only ships its goods within its country. The owners see no sense in welcoming visitors from abroad: anyway, they cannot place an order. It’s easier to restrict access so that only potential customers may enter.
- Legal issues. If a content provider, for example, does not reach an agreement with local authorities responsible for copyright laws implementation, it cannot start operating in this country until the issues are solved. In the meanwhile, its content may be already available in a neighboring country.
- A content provider that changes its content offers for various countries. For example, Netflix has some region-blocked series for various reasons. It may only purchase rights for a certain movie on particular markets and fail or refuse to do so on others. Another reason is a different cultural environment which may get certain movies and shows banned in one country and allowed in another.
- Disagreement with certain states’ policies. There are sites that are now unavailable in the EU countries because their owners disapprove of the GDPR policy, for example.
Now we are not talking about sites and pages locked in a certain country by their authorities, though these cases have a lot in common. Strategies of getting around the limitations differ in these situations, though. In the latter case, for example, you need to convince your local carrier you’re going somewhere else, not to the blocked site. If access is restricted by site owners, it’s them you need to convince you are from their country.
See also: Key Things To Know About E Way Bill
How Do You Overcome Region Blocking?
The method of getting to see the blocked content is obvious. Pretend your location is where access is allowed, and you’ll easily enter the site. When it comes to physical interactions, it won’t help you: for example, you can visit the site of a store, but it does not ship overseas, so you won’t be able to place an order. On the other hand, if you only need to read the description of a certain item, that will be enough.
It’s even more efficient with digital content. For example, if you log in to Netflix as an American user, you can enjoy its full catalog, while in other countries, it’s cut down and lacks thousands of titles. The same is with Amazon or Hulu: even if the site works from abroad, some titles or items may be inaccessible. However, if you pretend to be an American resident, a miracle happens, and the curtain falls.
What Does It Take to Get Around Region Blocking?
If you want to disguise yourself as a local of some region, you need an IP address of that region. This is a work for a proxy server. A proxy service has lots of regional servers that can substitute their IP address for yours, so your visit will not be recognized as an alien invasion.
When it comes to digital content (probably that’s what you want), a proxy should provide more than just access. You will also need decent speed, uptime up to 99.99%, and a data plan that allows you to watch favorite movies or listen to hours of music every day. Proxies capable of this are usually paid, but the price isn’t that high, and granted functionality is worth it.
Servers Without Borders
Proxy servers also comply with some regulations, so don’t expect that their usage will turn the Internet into a digital version of the Wild West for you. It doesn’t justify all the illegal things you may do online. On the other hand, it’s your right to watch Netflix as you have a subscription, and no law bans you from visiting online stores that don’t operate in your country. So you can save yourself a lot of time and effort by using a good proxy that gets you nearly anywhere.
Have you ever encountered region-blocked sites just when you needed them? How did you get around? Were you aware of proxies at that time? And what do you think about having a global proxy now: is it worth it? Share your opinions in the comments, please!
