There are many reasons that can appear for an advanced user to see something restricted in your country or region. The reason could be political, censored, legal, ownership, or geographical restrictions. A straightforward example, when streaming services like Netflix are forbidden in your country. Asia is famous for its restrictions on the Internet, especially China.
There are no restrictions in most European countries and Canada, but you may want to see something from a local Chinese resource, but the access will be forbidden based on your IP address. So, IT specialists invented some methods to come through all these protective borders.
Methods of getting access to blocked videos
Most of the methods are connected with a change of IP address (digital fingerprint) by masking or replacing it with different software.
- Use proxy extensions in browsers.
- Use online proxies that do not require installation
- Use VPN
- SmartDNS
- You can download on three parties’ sites the required video
Proxies – the easiest way to access blocked videos
Among the most common and easy ways to unblock videos for you is proxy; they occupy the first two places. Proxy is an intermediate server between the user and the website that gives you a new IP address. All data is going through a proxy server.
Proxies can help you in many ways:
- Make the connection more secure.
- Secure your data.
- Prevent third parties from tracking you.
- Control internet traffic (also proxies are used by IT specialists in Corporations).
There are several ways how to get proxies:
- You can download it from the Internet and turn it on when you need to change your fingerprint. Proxies can be anonymous and protected, forward and reverse, public and private, data center or residential, and many others. If you need the proxy only to access videos, you might focus only on simple free public proxies; they provide fewer addresses and are specialized only for one device.
- You can use online proxies (web-based proxies). The user should access all websites through proxy’s browser, redirecting all information through the storage. The available solutions can also be free or paid ones.
- You can get a set of proxies within a package of anti-detect browsers.
Most free proxies are not encrypted; public ones can be a risk for hacker attacks. All private data is sent to a proxy server; it is available to a server administrator. So, free proxies are acceptable, not for anything more, to fit the only purpose of checking videos.
Even though the level of privacy among public proxies is different concerning all other users of the same proxy server, a transparent proxy is the least private. In addition to IP change, it only allows you to block unwanted content and speed up the Internet connection, as the content will be downloaded from the proxy’s cache.
Anonymous proxies offer better protection; the user’s IP address is hidden from the hosting provider. The next level of protection is with distorting proxies and giving a false IP address instead of your IP address with different locations looks very real. Finally, the top secure poxy is the high anonymity one, used even by TOR, has encryption, and changes false IP from time to time.
You should search the type of proxies based on block type of video – if your video is blocked because of geographical location, you need to find a proxy where this video will not be blocked; usually, the country of proxy is a standard feature for all proxies. Before searching for the proxy, you may check automation about your browser to understand the current settings and compare them after the proxy application.
You may also like How to Manually Setup a VPN on Windows 11
VPN
VPN is a more complicated way to change your location; it is a virtual private network. All VPNs connections are encrypted. The logic of VPN is similar to proxies, it also redirects the traffic to external resources, but protection is a little bit better. 
You will save your connection from malware, phishing attacks, and fake websites. But as a proxy provider, a VPN provider should also be trustable. The choice between proxy and VPN should be based on the necessity of solid protection; you do not need to pay more if you need only the masking of IP, a proxy perfectly performs this task. Some websites can see VPN, so it is not the perfect tool for every video. Moreover, your connection will be slowed because of encryption.
SmartDNS
SmartDNS is a simple service version with redirection of traffic to an external server without protection. The speed of the connection stays high as there is no encryption. This technology is used for unblocking sites and services because of your geolocation. Actually, SmartDNS is also a type of proxy aimed only to cover geo-location restrictions. Finding SmartDNS proxy is the same and based on the precise information about the product, positive reviews, and availability of technical support.
Download files
Such servers as YouTube have mirrors that allow downloading files without access to the website. Just add two letters S before the link to the YouTube video, and your video will start to be saved. However, the disadvantage of such a method is quite apparent; this works only for a specific and limited number of videos, the downloading always requires some time.
You may also like How to Install a VPN on a Fire TV Stick
Wrap up
Unfortunately, none of these methods can provide you 100% guarantee to unblock all videos. So, in some complicated ways, you need to use one or another proxy, check VPN, or simply download the file. But nothing is possible if you use creativity. A perfect solution is if you have a set of proxies that you can try for your particular website with videos that will save you from unpredicted expenses. Also, today’s proxy can work; the next day, it could be banned (or VPN). So, a package of different proxies of different types (from the data center, residential, anonymous, and public, from different countries) will cover your needs. Many websites provide a trial period to test their proxies before buying the package.
Would you like to read more about blocked videos proxy-related articles? If so, we invite you to take a look at our other tech topics before you leave!
