When you’ve got used to using a VPN service, you’ll slowly start to discover the various advantages of being able to switch countries when you like. For example although in the UK most of the Premiership Football matches are only available on subscription TV if you change your location to USA or Canada you can find them broadcast online.
That means if you switch your VPN connection to the US, all American online broadcasts become available. They are usually available in other places too, most European stations broadcast football from other countries. In fact a general rule of thumb is that if you switch to a country where the sport is not too popular then you can often find it on mainstream TV broadcast over the internet.
It also works well for current affairs, after all why get your news second hand via your domestic broadcaster. Want to learn about Italian news and current affairs? Well, connect through an Italian VPN and all the Italian domestic broadcasts will be available without restriction. Obviously you’ll need to understand the language but it’s amazing the difference in perception you get from news from the domestic broadcaster than an international one. If you don’t speak the language it’s a great way to practice or learn.
Here’s one in action –
As you can see, the whole experience changes when you access an Italian web site with an Italian IP address. All countries are pretty much the same particularly with regards to media channels, normally access from outside the country is blocked or you may get redirected to some sort of ‘international version’.
In many ways it’s kind of sad that we see so many of these restrictions happening online. In the very early days of the internet, there were very few boundaries indeed technical knowledge was one of the few. Certainly you didn’t expect to be treated differently depending on where you were logging in from.
Nowadays there’s certainly better places to use the internet than others. Starting an online business in most western countries is relatively straightforward however taking and making payments from many African or Asian countries without a secure banking infrastructure can be difficult. We’ve probably all heard of the the Nigerian online scams, but spare a thought for the legitimate Nigerian entrepreneur who faces all sorts of discrimination online.
John Williams
Owner of a Paid VPN Service
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