It’s great to see the growth of streaming services. Shows like House of Cards, DareDevil, and countless other shows born from media streaming services are revolutionary. Services like HBO Go, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have become behemoths that let you access a variety of different TV shows conveniently. It doesn’t matter if you’re in bed, in a plane, or on a bus–well, if you’re in the right place on the map in said bus, plane, and bed. Global companies like Netflix have continued to tighten their grasps on the user by enforcing geo-restrictions on user IP addresses while companies like Hulu and HBO Go still aren’t expanding outside of the US, which leaves a large portion of the world’s population out of the loop. If you want to unblock HBO Go and get access to awesome TV shows, you’ll have to use a VPN.
A VPN? That’s easy, right? They’ve become so user-friendly and affordable that almost anyone could do it. Well, you’re right, but you’re also so wrong.
These online media companies are big companies–greedy companies, stingy companies–call them whatever you want–but they have agreements with television networks they have to hold and money they have to grow. HBO Go and Hulu don’t want you accessing their services if you’re not inside the United States–even if you pay! That doesn’t seem fair right? Australia doesn’t think so either.
So while using a VPN is easy, it’s a bit more tricky to use a VPN with media services. Most VPN providers as of March 2016 are having huge issues with these media services. It’s not as simple as just logging into a VPN, and getting access. Most popular VPN providers that are decent have had their IP addresses blacklisted by Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Go. That means ExpressVPN, IPVanish VPN, Private Internet Access are all having difficulties (if not outright giving up)! It also doesn’t help that Paypal is taking sides.
We’ve written some extensive guides on this site, but what it always comes back to is having a dedicated IP address. The only issue is that a majority of VPN providers don’t even provide the option to buy a dedicated IP address (some don’t think it’s useful), and those that do aren’t that spectacular (we’ve made a list of the best here). Some companies like TorGuard are fighting off Netflix by offering shared dedicated IPs (a short of weird fusion between shared and dedicated IP) while others are still trying to find ways just to understand the issue at hand.
If you want to unblock HBO Go, you’re going to need a United States IP address that isn’t blacklisted by HBO Go. We haven’t found another VPN with the same services that is pushing towards unblocking media like TorGuard. TorGuard VPN is one of the only providers right now that works with HBO Go, even if it requires you to talk to their live chat to get your new free shared dedicated IP address.
I’m curious to know your thoughts on the issues at hand. Is your favorite VPN working with HBO Go, Netflix, or Hulu?
