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Justin's Life

Welcome to my new blog. I plan to write about all sorts of things here, my life in Spain, ineresting things and ideas I've come across, places I've visited and so much more. Hope you enjoy it and please leave comments as your input is always appreciated.

How to watch BBC iPlayer in Spain and abroad LEGALLY
Monday, April 5, 2010 @ 2:01 AM

This is truly brilliant!

I have recently stumbled across a totally legal way of being able to watch BBC iPlayer when in Spain or abroad in general. AND IT'S REALLY CHEAP!

We get asked all the time how expats in Spain can catch up with their favourite programmes on the BBC iPlayer.

Until recently it seemed that the only way of doing this was by using a proxy server in the UK to effectively "pretend" you are in the UK. This is actually illegal and apart from the that, terribly unreliable and quite costly.

Well, what I am about to show you is going to blow your mind away. Because apart from allowing you to watch your favourite programmes on the BBC, it actually speeds up your Internet connection too.

This is SO true, I'm not making it up.

The service is called Onspeed. It's primary function is to actually speed up your Internet connection. Being able to access iPlayer abroad is simply a by-product of this service!

How it works

You install the Onspeed software on your PC. Once it's up and running, every time you access anything on the Internet it goes via OnSpeed's UK servers.

Onspeed compresses all the data on their servers before sending it to your PC. The compression aspect is what speeds up your Internet and the fact that it is done on OnSpeed's servers means that you are effectively seeing content as if you were based in the UK.

You're not breaking any laws at all. It's fully legal.

Genius!

Here's how it worked for me

We have a truly terrible Internet connection at home, thanks to Telefonica. Using the Onspeed speed test this is what I got BEFORE I installed the software:

Connection before

You wouldn't believe we are actually contracted for 6MB! We are getting just 224 KB of ADSL speed which is awful.

Anyway, I installed the Onspeed software, repeated the test and this was the speed test result:

Onspeed after

Still not quite my contracted 6MB but what a difference! 1.4 MB. That's a 6-fold improvement in the connection speed!! At least at this speed I can stop crying. Truly amazing improvement in the speed of my Internet connection.

Now, before I installed the software, this is what I used to see when trying to access iPlayer:

iPlayer blocked

Argh! Horrible message.

But look what happened after I installed Onspeed:

iPlayer after

:) Yippee. It works! And it's legal. And my Internet connection is faster too.

Best thing of all?

It costs only £26.99 or €29.99 for 12 MONTHS! It has to be the best bargain ever for us expats.

Anyway, hope that's made your day as much as it made mine when I installed it.

Check out Onspeed here and watch BBC iPlayer the cheap, easy and legal way...through a faster Internet connection.

It just seems to be too good to be true...but it's not! Try it out.

Enjoy.

Justin

1 Like

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116 Comments

Paul2002 said:
Monday, April 5, 2010 @ 4:16 AM

Well Justin it looked just too tempting for me too. I paid my £26.99 or whatever and downloaded.

Yes I could start watching Doctor who in streaming mode. Fantastic. But after about 1 minute I got a message about insufficient bandwidth for streaming. Evening though I am on 4gb broadband subscription. This issue could be caused by local contention on the service.

But then my IE browser hangs. It stops responding.

The Chrome browser works but all attempts to quit IE fails - even trying to end the process in task manager fails to end it. Had to reboot.

Same experience again on rebooting. I write this text using the chrome browser. I will try a few more experiments to see if I can learn any work around and post again.

Paul2002 said:
Monday, April 5, 2010 @ 5:45 AM

Well Justin after another hour or so I've given up. IE hangs after a few minutes. Everything is ok again when I reboot.
But after a fourth re-boot I got an error message from windows about some Accellerator process failing -(OnSpeed related I think).

So my Vista PC with all its virus and anti-spam protections seems not to be compatible. I've asked for my money back in the 14 day no quibbles guaranteee. I'll post up a response to that in a few days.

Justin said:
Monday, April 5, 2010 @ 8:21 AM

That's a shame Paul. I have it on two PCs and they are both working really well with it.

I made a mistake the first time and didn't follow all the instructions and it didn't work properly. A reboot sorted it all out though.

Shame you couldn't get it to work for you.

Justin

Steve said:
Monday, April 5, 2010 @ 8:27 AM

Thank you Justin, this is what I have been waiting for. I have installed it and it's working fine for me. I cannot believe this actually works.

Thank you again. Steve

Another Justin said:
Monday, April 5, 2010 @ 3:18 PM

Onspeed:

Do you feel comfortable about your banks pages also going through Onspeeds servers?

Justin said:
Monday, April 5, 2010 @ 3:38 PM

They are a very established company but if you have any issues you can just switch it off by right-clicking the icon in the task bar.

yobnyrnep said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 1:10 PM

I'm in Cyprus and it didn't work for me here. I tried BBC, ITV and Ch 4 but they all gave me the "not available in your area" message.
Until now, I've used My Private Network and that works beautifully.
Remains to be seen if Onspeed do give a refund if you're not happy.

yobnyrnep said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 1:24 PM

I'm in Cyprus and it didn't work for me here. I tried BBC, ITV and Ch 4 but they all gave me the "not available in your area" message.
Until now, I've used My Private Network and that works beautifully.
Remains to be seen if Onspeed do give a refund if you're not happy.

yobnyrnep said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 1:26 PM

I contacted Onspeed and they gave me some info on changing the settings on Firefox and now it works! So, bravo Justin and I apologise for my hasty dismissal.

les said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 2:09 PM

Hi Paul,will this work on my laptop ,my internet connection is via a satalite dish with costa blanca broadband.
regards,Les

Bluemax said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 2:20 PM

Hi Just back from our place near Javea and the first day there i had lost vertually all my TV ! I was still running on a Sky bluecard.A bit of searching came up with the site below
http://www.uknova.com/
Free to register and we downloaded in great quality all British TV
( Coronation St etc ) so equivilant to watch again but free. I also have a Slingbox in the UK which now allows recording of home TV but the picture is not always brilliant via Telefonica.
Great site many thanks David

Justin said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 3:23 PM

Les, of course it would work on your laptop. No reason why it shouldn't.

graham said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 6:43 PM

Justin as you know we sell UKIP which will alllow users to watch BBC ITV I player anywhere in the world. It is not a proxy server and has been used for the last 3 years with no probs. It is not illegal to sell UKIPS. We do however charge more €99.00 + IVA for 12 months. So if you want an alternative that works email info@teleweb-marbella.com :::: Justin your internet connection is not very good is it. I can now supply you with a much better wireless connection with speeds up to 3Mb download. Interested?

Tony Edge said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 7:21 PM

And none of you said you used it to listen to PMQ's every week!!

Tony

Justin said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 7:29 PM

Tony, I love PMQs! It the biggest laugh of the week. Shame it's not going to be on for a while.

Rob in Bubble busted Land said:
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 @ 9:30 PM

should get a big spike in hits, just posted this info over to TT Germany (big expat website for Brits in Germany, odd I know Birts moving to Germany rather than Spain????) They've had huge discussions over how to get iplayer working. Unfortunately for many thebox.bz is invitation only.

como tu qires said:
Thursday, April 8, 2010 @ 3:17 AM

Wow amazing and unbelievable !!! when &how do you all find time to watch the box so much. Surely there is life beyond bbc,itv and cori and ... a bit like having one foot in the grave.

bbc.co.uk offers much to improve your lifestyle here in España and worldwide so "go on check it out." "Mi Vida loca." and much more and is life long. No fees no hazel perfect viewing too and most of all "you will feel good" :)

ChrisW said:
Thursday, April 8, 2010 @ 5:28 PM

Hi .. i offer a service that allow u to watch uk tv and record it on a laptop etc ..where ever you are .. No vpn.. this artical .. if you are going through a UK server that is still using as a proxy .. so is still the same .. all this is doing is compressing the data and still connecting as a vpn .. NO different

Regards

Martin F said:
Sunday, April 11, 2010 @ 2:50 PM

It works OK. I used Onspeed several times before and never realised that you can access UK TV and retailers without being regarded as a foreigner. So I have just renewed at £17.99 (30% off) and am looking forward to seeing a few programmes I've missed. I hadn't bothered to renew before because I thought broadband was fast enough for my cranky old laptop. Thanks for the advice! Most installation troubles go away when you use the very efficient Onspeed service reps either online or by email.

Paul2002 said:
Saturday, April 24, 2010 @ 5:49 AM

Well, as it did not work for me I asked for a refund and they responded immediately to say the refund would take 10 to 12 days.
No idea why it should take 10 to 12 days !

Well is its been 18 days and no sign of any refund. Not very impressed.

If they don't refund in the next week I will write to the credit card company.

Paul

Paul2002 said:
Saturday, April 24, 2010 @ 5:55 AM

Well, as it did not work for me I asked for a refund and they responded immediately to say the refund would take 10 to 12 days.
No idea why it should take 10 to 12 days !

Well is its been 18 days and no sign of any refund. Not very impressed.

If they don't refund in the next week I will write to the credit card company.

Paul

Phil Holt said:
Saturday, May 1, 2010 @ 8:17 AM

I got onspeed on the basis of this article and it does work for the BBC iplayer. Does anyone know why the ITV player doesn`t similarly work?

Justin said:
Thursday, May 6, 2010 @ 3:12 PM

Phil, it must be to do with the way they identify your location.

I haven't managed to get ITV to work on it but you can watch channel 4 by viewing the videos on the channel 4 channel on YouTube. YouTube sees onspeed as being in the UK so you can watch these without any problems.

Marian said:
Thursday, June 3, 2010 @ 9:09 PM

Or you could get someone to configure their computer back in the uk so yours is included and when theyres is on you can watch what you like, for free!

and for american tv, get a friend or relative to put the right piece of equipment between theyre tv and theyre aerial, and you have access to american tv from theyre area! from anywhere you are on your computer!

roland oliver said:
Thursday, June 24, 2010 @ 12:00 PM

Hi unable to load software, click onspeed, blank page bottom done. can you help please

rolandoliver56@gmail.com

Roger said:
Friday, July 2, 2010 @ 3:45 PM

There is no real difference between using a free or paid UK proxy, or Onspeed, to view iPlayer. They both make it appear as if you are in the UK, thus fooling the geographic filters on the BBC (and ITV) site.
Semantics, Justin.

Justin said:
Friday, July 2, 2010 @ 3:49 PM

Roger, the difference is that using a Proxy is actually illegal. Using Onspeed is perfectly legal.

Pirate said:
Friday, July 2, 2010 @ 3:50 PM

Try using Firefox with Foxy proxy.
You have to search for free UK proxies but it IS possible.
Personally I couldn't care less whether it's illegal (no it isn't actually; it's a civil offence to use copyright material without permission), or not.
I use a Bit Torrent client and a good tracker site, such as BTJunkie or, for UK TV, UKNova, and get lots of free content, including many popular US TV series.

Ayobnyrnep said:
Wednesday, July 7, 2010 @ 11:36 AM

Onspeed no longer works with ITV Player for me. I get the message "Sorry, and internet connection failure caused the video to stop..."

tuktuk said:
Thursday, July 15, 2010 @ 9:27 AM

I tried this yesterday...Completely knocked out Internet Explorer...had to delete Onspeed to get IE working again. Didn't function with Mozilla either.
I then went back to Onspeed to ask for refund and after about four or five emails from them advising to do this that and the other( for me computer speak and gobbledy gook) they agreed to a refund and said it would take sixteen working days!!
I personally use vpnuk.net for watching streamed tv ...it's about a fiver a month...but of course I'm always looking for a cheaper alternative

iplayer abroad said:
Saturday, August 28, 2010 @ 1:18 PM

There are numerous sites available to watch UK TV abroad, however this one is the best. It has access to TV channels that others don't and the customer service is efficient and friendly.

titian1014 said:
Tuesday, October 12, 2010 @ 8:37 PM

i've just purchased Onspeed , it doesn't work for me either. I just get a message saying 'not available in your area'
Pooh Sticks !

Bob said:
Saturday, November 6, 2010 @ 11:19 PM

1) By definition its a proxy.
2) Proxy's are not illegal its accessing copyright material unlawfully that is.
3) At anytime the bbc could decide to block this just as ITV has done

Bob2 said:
Sunday, November 7, 2010 @ 1:19 AM

FYI I installed and faced issue with Vista and IE7 where hangs (as described by a previous poster). I fixed it as follows:

Click Start
Type and run: iexplore -extoff
Open IE in "safe mode" should work (kinda)

Go to: Tools>Internet Options>Programs>
Click: Manage add-ons
Select: Now!Imaging
Check: Disable
Select: Prefetch and disable
Check: Disable
Close IE restart as normal

Now this means some advantages of onspeed will not work with IE. So use firefox.

Bob said:
Sunday, November 7, 2010 @ 1:53 AM

Also the above method allows you to watch ITV in IE!
Has anyone noticed how you cannot post to this forum when using onspeed?

jaime said:
Monday, December 13, 2010 @ 11:05 PM

I needed to improve my english so I have been looking for a good method to watch BBC iPlayer for a while. Finally, I tried Expat Shield, a program which masks your IP simullating you're in England. It works fine and the better, it's free.

Lesley said:
Friday, January 7, 2011 @ 6:40 PM

I live in the Canarias and have been using http://digitalworldplus.com for quite some time. It is a VPN sevice but works a treat.

Paul said:
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 @ 4:07 PM

I use a service by www.avanti.ndo.co.uk/proxy.html they charge €9.99 per month and i live in Malaga and use the service regularly.

NonSpeed said:
Sunday, January 30, 2011 @ 2:10 PM

Can't help feeling Onspeed are scrambling for ways to justinify (I mean justify) their continued existence.

Apart from the potential issue of sending everything via their servers, you have to accept that they only achieve their speed increases by heavily compressing graphic/video content. If grotty images are OK, then go for it. These days, you'd have to be on 9600 baud dial-up Russian-built, second-hand modem to be able to see real benefits!

If you are not trying to watch live TV, another legal alternative is to VPN (ie remotely connect - there are lots of ways to do this, have a look at TeamViewer) into your/a willing friend's UK machine, where you can download content and store it on your NAS (network attached storage) and then stream/watch it directly in a web browser window on your pool-side laptop (!) - with the benefit of getting the HD version. I've experimented with something called the TonidoPlug (easy Google) which is a very cheap way of turning external drives (USB or Firewire) into a useful server, but they also have a program that will run on your main PC.

I haven't tried it, but assuming you could store programmes on something like a Netgear Stora, you could equally easily retrieve them from there. To get round the Beeb's rubbish limitations on where it lets you easily store downloads, I use junctions - a facility in Windows to re-map where it thinks a folder is - be warned, creating junctions is a bit more of a techy operation - see http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm for a handy helper program, and read what you need to do to avoid cocking them up at a later date!

Worth the effort, because no recurring monthly fees, so for those of you with a UK base, or willing family member/friend to host your cunning plan (and let you use the bandwidth!).

Having said all that, I would probably just go with a proxy - if you do have a UK base and are paying the license fee, I'd have a clear conscience about it - if you don't, just give the equivalent £ to Pudsey once a year!

Good luck, and let me know if any of you try it!

Adrian

iplayer abroad said:
Saturday, February 19, 2011 @ 8:25 AM

It most likely won't be as expensive as the television license... no one would pay for the service. I hope there's packages to choose from - one month of services, three months, six months and a whole year - I can see this being a huge success, as long as it's not too expensive.

davesaints said:
Sunday, February 27, 2011 @ 12:35 PM

I have a way of getting bbc iplayer and itv etc for free,
have a look at this sitehttps://sites.google.com/site/iplayerinspain/

It works well, you will need at least 3mb connection speed

Martin Barratt said:
Monday, March 7, 2011 @ 10:15 PM

Just downloaded Onspeed and now my computer won't run at all. Tried Bob2's Safe Mode corrections but to no avail. Will have to find a computer expert tomorrow. Seems like a very inconvenient and expensive experiment.

Justin said:
Monday, March 7, 2011 @ 10:19 PM

Sorry to hear that Martin. OnSpeed have a good support service so try that first. Not sure what will have gone wrong.

Lesley Jane said:
Wednesday, March 30, 2011 @ 3:53 PM

I live in the Canary Islands and have been using https://www.vpnworld.co.uk for some time now. They have a massive selection of VPN accounts from many different countries. Being a lover of both British and American TV (hulu especially) I have one of their dual UK & USA VPN accounts. Best of both worlds, love it. Highly recommended.

Paul said:
Friday, April 15, 2011 @ 6:57 PM

I have tried all sorts of free VPN services in the UK, However they all now seem to charge? the cheapest one I have found so far is about €4 per month. You can sign up at www.ebrovalleycomputers.eu

Peter said:
Sunday, April 17, 2011 @ 5:02 PM

Hi All

If you are in Spain can you not get the channels on satellite anyway?

I'm based in far east and been using http://www.uk-iplayer.com/ and it works well even with my grotty internet connection.

elaineinspain said:
Saturday, April 30, 2011 @ 12:11 PM

I can onlgy get the internet through a dongle, although it does usually give 3G. Does anyoneone know if this will be fast enough to enable me to use either the VPN or a service such as Onspeed?

Justin said:
Saturday, April 30, 2011 @ 12:34 PM

Elaine, most dongle services after a certain amount of bandwidth use will reduce in speed to 1MB so to be honest I don't think it will work well for you. You need at least 3MB for it to stream half decently most of the time.

However, if you use something like onspeed, instead of streaming the programmings you can actually download them to your PC and then watch them. If you are happy to do it like this then it will be fine to use with your dongle.

wifinetspain.com said:
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 @ 1:24 PM

Strange persons you are that belive all what you see. Its not possible to get fastest speed as service provaider gives you.
If i as service provaider give you 1 mbit/s, you can use any software what you like, but speed will not be faster. But software can lies without any problems. You are making a test and software can show you what it wants :). Dont trust! About BBC - software just create a virtual network to UK, and BBC streamer thinks, that you are in UK. Just virtualisation.

Justin said:
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 @ 1:33 PM

OnSpeed can make your connection seem faster because it compresses things such as images.

That's all it's doing.

It was more relevant in the old days of dial-ups but not so much these days.

But it still works great for viewing iPlayer in Spain!!

wifinetspain.com said:
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 @ 6:29 PM

Strange persons you are that belive all what you see. Its not possible to get fastest speed as service provaider gives you.
If i as service provaider give you 1 mbit/s, you can use any software what you like, but speed will not be faster. But software can lies without any problems. You are making a test and software can show you what it wants :). Dont trust! About BBC - software just create a virtual network to UK, and BBC streamer thinks, that you are in UK. Just virtualisation.

wifinetspain.com said:
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 @ 6:37 PM

Ok, software just compressing data and playing with quality, but not increase a speed. If download a movie speed will be the same with or without software. Movie is compressed before :). About player -ok im agree with this.

Khristalyn Quirante said:
Thursday, August 4, 2011 @ 5:07 AM

The way I watch BBC iplayer in Spain is to use the proxy from www.uk-iplayer.com works for me and great to catch-up on TV here.

Dave Halls said:
Wednesday, August 31, 2011 @ 1:19 PM

For all those interested, I have found what seems to be a really good and reliable vpn service. It is www.tv-worldwide.com. I have tried quite a few vpn's both expensive and cheap. The problem has always been buffering. They all seem to suffer from it!! Well I've been with tv-worldwide for a couple of months now and (up till now) no buffering!! I'll let everyone know if it carries on so well.

Just thought I'd give everyone the heads up!

sam said:
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 @ 1:45 PM

try expat shild it free

Michael said:
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 @ 4:20 PM

Hi there Justin,

I am running Apple Mac in PNG. I live in the UK but work here and of course, mis all the programs because of the servers we use.

The setup is broadband (WiFi or cable connection) inside a works camp. All Internet and telephony in set to a dish (I think either C Band or K Band) and uploaded to a satellite. I don't know what happens to the signal after that, but computers think that we are in Queensland, Australia. All surf content tends to favour Australian sites too.

Will it work here?

Cheers

Michael said:
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 @ 10:08 PM

I suppose in theory it should work for you, just as it works for us here in Spain. It should really work in any country.

Michael said:
Thursday, October 6, 2011 @ 9:43 AM

Hi there Justin,

I tried clicking the link for onspeed, but because of our network security - it will not open for me here.

Is there a way it can be accessed via a differently named site or URL. The URL must have a keyword which flags our systems here and locks me out.

I am the same Michael that wrote about watching TV from work site and bouncing our Internet via satellite over Queensland, Aus.

Cheers for any help,

Michael

Justin said:
Friday, October 7, 2011 @ 12:37 PM

Michael, try just going to www.onspeed.com and see if you can access the site ok.

Mike New said:
Monday, October 24, 2011 @ 12:40 PM

I am in Egypt and have set up a group of around 100 expats with Cienen VPN. - you get servers in the UK, USA and Canada - to be economical you need to find a bunch of friends to share the cost - it allows up to 7 simultaneous connections on one account for around GBP 80 a year.

They also offer a free 3 hour trial.

It has worked brilliantly for the last 3 years, and best of all it allows Skype which has been blocked by some of the mobile providers here.

Gazzer said:
Friday, November 4, 2011 @ 8:01 PM

Try EXPATSHIELD. A small download and is a proxy prog. Works for BBCi. Wont let you play National Lottery online tho, their servers are too smart. :-)

Gazzer said:
Friday, November 4, 2011 @ 8:02 PM

Oh BTW, it's FREE

chris said:
Friday, November 11, 2011 @ 4:36 PM

thanks gazza,works a treat,and freeeeeeeeee.

Jackie said:
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ 6:20 PM

Have been using ExPat - Anchor Free - for several months now, but just recently it's constantly catching up and it's virtually impossible to watch a half houy programme in less than an hour! Have also been getting the 'insufficient bandwith' message

Anybody know why this is happening?

mjb said:
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ 10:53 PM

I use Channelhopper for connnecting to BBC/ITViplayers from Spain. Great service from those guys and very good streaming quality

Andrew said:
Monday, November 28, 2011 @ 9:50 PM

I have been having a problem getting the BBC and itv and tried different sevices and found that the only real solution is to have your home "wired" for the country that you want to watch tv from. I now watch BBC, ITV and all the US channels such as Neflix from either my Wii or Ps3. Have a look at www.netglobaltv.com ordered a box from them and it was literally plug and play . Connected to anywhere in the world, BBC is great on a PS3 better than through a laptop.

BLC said:
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 @ 10:40 PM

Hi, anyone know what is the best for Belgium?

Vermin said:
Wednesday, December 28, 2011 @ 1:57 PM

HOW ABOUT MALTA FOLKS?

Dave said:
Friday, January 20, 2012 @ 4:29 PM

Hi all,

Tips for those when using Anchor's Free version of Expat Shield:

1. Run on Google Chrome with adblockers installed (these are available as a direct install from Google's web shop). This will block Expat Shield's advertising.

2. Do not assume Expat Shield is not running after you disconnect it. To ensure it does not try and reconnect whilst you are in the middle of something online - start task manager and kill manually the Expat Shield process.

Have been using Expat Shield for some time with no probs, despite I have only a 3 meg connextion.

Great TV Site: http://one-tvshows.eu

Luck to all

Ray Parker said:
Sunday, January 29, 2012 @ 4:51 AM

I live in Benidorm in a building that can't have a dish so needed another way to get UK telly channels, Definately the best service for live channels is tvcatchup (www.tvcatchup.com) allthough you will need a VPN to get this running, the only one that still seems to work with this is AngloVPN (www.anglovpn)
5 or 6 Euros a month I think, not too bad.

md said:
Friday, February 10, 2012 @ 12:11 AM

www.filmon.com is the best! Live streaming straight to my laptop or to the telly. Really easy. Hope to God they don't shut it down.

Ifal said:
Friday, February 10, 2012 @ 11:56 PM

Ive been using Anglo VPN (http://www.anglovpn.com) to watch all the UK Freeview channels, BBC Channel 4 Dave TV etc in Alicante for past few weeks, works fine. Just need to get a HDMI link into my telly and surround speakers and Im sorted, not sure if theres any movie channels included tho.

lukester said:
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 @ 7:41 PM

this all seems a bit of a waste of time and effort, u could as "nonspeed" said just get a VPN for about £30 a month on unlimited bandwidth. You would have to turn off all the browser security to watch videos... alternatively just set up the vpn as a proxy?
or
use an anonomizer service, anonymouse.org springs to mind but dunno if it works for streaming data.

larry said:
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 @ 5:01 PM

As from friday 24th you can watch bbc 1 2 3 4 itv 1 2 3 4 more 4 e4 film 4 c5 5usa c4 plus loads more free on a 1mt dish. no monthly charges.

malcolm h said:
Tuesday, February 28, 2012 @ 5:20 PM

I use Expat Telly (www.expattelly.com) and get all the channels with no problem, took me 5 mins to setup and so far has been trouble free.

sheila p said:
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 @ 7:51 PM

larry, how does that work

Brian said:
Friday, March 16, 2012 @ 7:43 PM

Hi Does anyone know if iplayer official is available in Morocco? Iv been using www.laptoptelly.com as a UK VPN, not bad service for itv 4od etc, wanted the full legit bbc service if possible tho.

jo said:
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 @ 11:38 PM

I use Lamnia VPN, I can get BBC iPlayer, ITV live, can't get channel 4 live which is a pain. Never tried Channel 5...have you????
It's good and Paul on live support is an angel

Jo x

Rodplod said:
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 @ 2:16 PM

Why are so many coughing up monthly fees? Download & install "Expatshield" (Google it). It's FREE and allows you to use BBC IPlayer & ITV IPlayer for FREE. This little piece of software can be used all over the world where you have a half decent hight speed internet connection. Can be enabled or disabled via the little icon you will get on your taskbar. In case you didn't hear me the first time.... it's FREE !!!!

David said:
Thursday, March 29, 2012 @ 10:31 PM

Yes Rodplod it is free to try, however I would draw your attention to my words of caution submitted on 22 Jan. Expatshield free trial is riddled with adware etc which will slow your system down, and continues to run in the background even after using the disconnect icon.

The full package is very cheap (approx £25 p.a.) its quicker and less problematical re. ad/spyware etc. Nothing in life is free!

Andy said:
Friday, May 25, 2012 @ 10:08 AM

Sorry to disappoint you Justin, but OnSpeed is just a proxy server. It works by receiving a web page on your behalf (which is the definition of a proxy serer) then compressing the html (which is only text) and any images that aren't already compressed, then sending it on to you.

This sounds great, until you realise that most websites are already sending you compressed html and images. This is because website owners have to pay for the amount of data sent from their servers and, of course, they want their visitors to load their web pages as quickly as possible.

As for streaming video, the streaming medium will already have been highly compressed, so any additional decompression/compression performed by OnSpeed can only serve to slow things down - not speed things up.

In conclusion then, OnSpeed will speed up access to simple websites and some email servers (some are already compressed), it will do nothing for images (which are already compressed) and might actually slow down other types of media such as streaming video (TV).

Oh, and since OnSpeed servers are located in the UK, it fools BBC iPlayer into believing that you are too. That doesn't mean that it is legal.

Andy said:
Friday, May 25, 2012 @ 10:20 AM

I forgot to add that there is absolutely no reason why they wouldn't demonstrate their service by letting you have a free trial. You would only need one hour to see the extraordinary speed increases that they claim. But they would never do that, because it doesn't work.

bob ( i am not in Spain) said:
Saturday, June 2, 2012 @ 9:53 PM

Justin wrote " actually illegal and..."
as far as I can tell, this is not illegal. Please kindly back this up with your source.

Carl said:
Monday, June 4, 2012 @ 6:29 PM

You cannot legally watch iPlayer in Spain no matter how you try to justify it!

Karl said:
Friday, July 20, 2012 @ 5:02 PM

You need a VPN for BBC if you`re outside the UK. Right now I use this UK VPN, streaming video on BBC iPlayer works great with it.

Jean Pier said:
Thursday, August 9, 2012 @ 3:17 AM

I am british student in Italy and I use hidemyass.com to watch UK content in Italy. It's very cheap and fast and you have access to dozens of UK servers to choose across the UK.
But it got me scarred that it's illegal watching UK content abroad, but who doesn't in a county like Spain that is packed up with britains.

Mark said:
Thursday, November 1, 2012 @ 6:43 AM

Watch BBC iPlayer anywhere in the world using Hotspot Shield Free VPN.

Check it out here: http://www.hotspotshield.com

Rob said:
Sunday, December 2, 2012 @ 9:40 PM

"That doesn't mean that it is legal"

So is driving over the speed limit or rolling through a stop sign. In other words who cares

SMB said:
Friday, December 14, 2012 @ 4:58 PM

Watching UKTV is illegal in ANY form anywhere other than inside the UK. In the case of BBC/iplayer - these are only for people who pay a TV licence because by paying for the licence you are paying for the programmes. That's how they're funded. If you don't pay the licence then it's theft. These are the facts so all the chat about proxies etc is moot - yes it's technically possible, but it's a fact that you're using them in order to deliberately access content that you have not paid for.
Check the BBC statement here: http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/mobile_iplayer/outside_UK

SMB said:
Friday, December 14, 2012 @ 5:00 PM

...specifically the part that says...

"No. Because of rights restrictions, we are not allowed to make BBC video available outside the UK"

SMB said:
Friday, December 14, 2012 @ 5:05 PM

And for anyone wondering, it's the same for Sky UK. They don't have permissions to broadcast outside the UK either, so all those with huge satellite dishes are in the same boat.

Just google it peeps.

Simon said:
Friday, December 14, 2012 @ 5:09 PM

SMB, are you having a bad day? Chill man.

danrogers said:
Monday, January 7, 2013 @ 8:55 PM

Most people down here on the costa that i speak to have a subscription online of one form or another to get tv channels. Been using http://www.changeipvpn.com for few weeks, works well enough. not sure on legalities but cant see it being a problem.

Martin Ford said:
Thursday, January 10, 2013 @ 5:59 AM

I use oneclick. VPN. And it is only £6.99 per year.

You can get 1 week free to try with no credit card.

Also the support is very good as part of the app you have live support.

http://216.185.105.35/vpnoneclick/

Marie said:
Friday, January 11, 2013 @ 4:45 PM

Have been to vpn oneclick but cannot find free trial.

Marie said:
Friday, January 11, 2013 @ 5:17 PM

VPNoneclick no longer offers free trial but do have 7 day money back guarantee.

Marie said:
Friday, January 11, 2013 @ 5:24 PM

Hi Martin re vpnoneclick do not know where you got a package for £6.99 per year as cheapest I can see is $55.oo per year going to website you posted. Am I going wrong somewhere?

Mark said:
Sunday, January 27, 2013 @ 10:24 AM

I love your Spain related captcha :)

Do you know if this VPN service, Happy VPN http://www.happy-vpn.com/buy-uk-vpn.php is ok to use from Spain ? It's cheaper.

Zack said:
Sunday, February 10, 2013 @ 6:11 PM

I saw this whilst surfing the net, says that you can get iPlayer & ITV Player working in Spain, free trialler
http://www.bbc-iplayer.tk

Ross said:
Monday, April 29, 2013 @ 12:13 PM

Quote "Until recently it seemed that the only way of doing this was by using a proxy server in the UK to effectively "pretend" you are in the UK. This is actually illegal and apart from the that, terribly unreliable and quite costly."

This is no different to tunnelling your traffic over a VPN to "appear" in the UK as your service does, and neither are illegal.

Dave said:
Sunday, May 12, 2013 @ 11:51 AM

I've tried a bunch of services to watch iplayer in Spain over the years but have only really been happy with standard VPN providers. Even then the quality varies a lot with different companies. Here's a write up on what to look for in case anyone is interested .. http://www.watchuktvabroad.org/

Fergus said:
Tuesday, June 4, 2013 @ 12:27 PM

I found the link I registered last week for this, 2.99 Month for the BBC iPlayer down here.

http://www.laptoptelly.com/subsdeal

Fred said:
Tuesday, August 27, 2013 @ 6:32 PM

Thanks for the great blog Justin, as some of the others have said in the comments it isn't always an ideal service. I would definitely recommend signing up for a paid VPN service, some good ones only cost a few pounds a month and it is well worth it for a fast and dedicated service. Check out how to watch BBC iplayer abroad using a vpn with the following guide http://www.vpncompare.co.uk/how-to-watch-bbc-iplayer-from-abroad/

George said:
Wednesday, November 20, 2013 @ 7:51 PM

Hi,we've recently moved to France and as with the rest of you, are missing the good 'ol BBC. However we are concerned about the legal aspects of getting UK tv abroad. Paying for a service doesn't make it legal. My other issue is that the BBC/ITV etc don't have licenses to show abroad which is why iplayer etc doesn't work. Isn't this right?

Susan said:
Tuesday, December 10, 2013 @ 7:00 PM

Until recently we've always used expat shield, but when I tried today, they tried to charge me $5.99!! As we're in Spain, I don't quite know what is going on------

James said:
Monday, December 16, 2013 @ 2:13 AM

I have been using ONSPEED for a few year. I stay in Thailand. In general it has worked well for me and allows me to watch BBC iplayer and ITV player - BUT - ITV Player has now decided that if you have ad block software installed you cannot watch programs. I have spent a good few hours trying to disable the ad block software that is causing the problem but to no avail. I use google chrome. I have disabled all the ad block software on my netbook (that I can fins) but still getting pop up message from ITV saying that it has been detected. BBC iplayer still works fine. Anybody got similar problem ? and any solution found ? Not sure if this problem is due to ITV being able to detect that a proxy server is being used ? any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Jim Fletcher said:
Thursday, December 19, 2013 @ 11:23 PM

You can achieve the same thing with a piece of software called SelekTOR, just google "SelekTOR Dazzleships"

The difference is it gives you access to ITV, STV and Channel 4 as well as BBC content plus it has other uses as well.
Their is also no monthly fees.

Their is an article on it just google "SelekTOR british tv" on how to use it on Windows its also available for Linux.

I hope this is of help to your readers.

Cheers

Aruna said:
Saturday, January 4, 2014 @ 7:06 PM

"I tried primovpn.net and were able to open Facebook in my office. Website speed was also good. It's very easy to use. Downloading is also awesome. It's much better than proxy websites because they contain less amount of malware and viruses in comparision to proxy websites. "

blackrabbitz said:
Tuesday, January 21, 2014 @ 12:58 PM

uktvaccess.com - it just works, end of story

muddyleopard said:
Tuesday, January 21, 2014 @ 1:01 PM

agree with black rabbit - uktvaccess.com is the biz

bigirl said:
Sunday, April 27, 2014 @ 5:14 PM

I would recommend a service called SmartDNS, provided by a company called OverPlay. I've been using them for several years: http://www.overplay.net/#a_aid=OVRPLY

SmartDNS is a new way of accessing tv and video streaming websites that are usually geographically blocked to anyone trying to watch from outside the country.

SmartDNS replicates many of the traditional VPN features, but without ANY loss of speed. It permits access to restricted websites in different countries. The best part is that with SmartDNS, you don't even need to dial into a VPN connection. The initial setup is super easy, and then you just browse as normal... but without the limits.

SmartDNS enables virtually every streaming service you can imagine (BBC iPlayer, iTV, Hulu, Pandora, Netflix etc), and the servers are as fast as your internet connection.

It's $4.95 per month, or if you pay annually, it's $49.95, and you can cancel anytime.

cassandra.lyle said:
Thursday, May 15, 2014 @ 2:54 PM

I'd recommend Unblock Us: http://www.unblock-us.com/35771.html

It's faster than a VPN, and there's no software to install. Just follow the instructions on their website to make a small change to the DNS settings on your computer or whatever device you will be watching on, and that's it.

They offer a 7-day free trial with the simplest of sign-ups, just put in your email address. Once your free trial expires, then you can decide to pay $4.99 a month.

I've tried/paid several providers, and I can say that Unblock Us offers the fastest streaming connection of them all.

big_swifty said:
Wednesday, September 10, 2014 @ 8:11 PM

What an absolute load of old bollocks. You can't get 3 pints out of a pint pot. Scam.

lareen said:
Tuesday, April 21, 2015 @ 7:46 PM

In my opinion, To be able to get free access to BBC iPlayer or any other blocked web content, using VPN is the best choice to bypass restrictions and unblock your favorite content freely. Get this VPN http://www.vpnfaqs.com/2014/11/using-vpn-to-watch-bbc/ it is mine for almost 2 years without any problems.

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Justin Aldridge
Since 2004 I've been living with my lovely family in Manilva on the Costa del Sol. Being passionate about Formula 1 and chocolate Hob Nobs takes up most of my time ;) Enjoy my blog.