Ethan Rose – Apple fanatic, Blogger, Guru, Technologist.

07-15-10

How to get Pandora, Hulu in New Zealand

A lot of you reading this will probably have seen the ads around the web for completely anonymous, secure, proxy, VPN and whatever else they like to call it..

I wager your first reaction would have been, who would need that? Only kiddie-porn rings and undercover agents right?

There is a less publicised and far more legitimate reason that you might want to use one of these services – to obscure your location. Services like Pandora, Hulu, Spotify, Netflix, Veoh, ABC and many others employ IP checks on their users, to protect themselves from getting in trouble over their lisences, but where does that leave people like me, in New Zealand, who want to use these awesome services, who are willing to pay for them?

Out to dry.

There is an answer! Pay for (safer) or otherwise procure a free VPN service which will send all your traffic to the US or wherever it is you need to comply with the IP checks. Be aware – all your personal traffic is going trough someone else’s server. This means, should they have malicious intent, they are in a very good position to hijack your info.

As long as you are careful, choose and trustworthy provider and be sure to employ SSL on your email and web logins you should be more than safe.

There is an added bonus to this setup – should your ISP be trying to throttle your torrent downloads of all that open-source software, this will obscure the type of traffic and you’ll be home free!

Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone and Android all support VPN so get to it!

Thanks to SuperVPN for giving me a free VPN account, you guys are awesome.

07-06-10

SuperVPN

So this morning I woke up and checked my Twitter.

There was an update from RazorianFly talking about how to get free VPN.

I followed the link and it lead me through to SuperVPN’s free VPN offer page.

All I had to do was Digg their page and a few other social niceties and they hooked me up with Free VPN. How kind!

So far set-up has been easy and I am able to browse quickly. I will post up a review soon after I have used it a while but so far it seems to be great!

05-24-10

Is Google losing it’s way?

Google’s New Homepage, Now with Backgrounds..

Or is that Ask.com?

Was the ever-standing white homepage not Google’s trademark on every computer screen around the room?

05-19-10

Does NZ enjoy Net Neutrality? Really?

Can you imagine paying a premium for a site you wanted to visit because your ISP favoured another?

We are net crazy in New Zealand but a lot of us dont know (or care) about what is going on behind the scenes. I have noticed a trend lately and I want to share it.

Wikipedia says:

Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet Service Providers or governments on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as communication that unreasonably degrades other traffic.

Building on this post from Ben Gracewood, I too feel net neutrality is dying in New Zealand. Already we have all sorts of special deals depending on who your ISP is, where you live and how you access the internet.

Where does this leave me? Confused.

Who do I sign up with? Why can I get free TVNZ On-Demand on Orcon and Snap but not on Vodafone?

Our sites arent restricted in NZ at the moment (we dont have many sites with pay walls and exclusive access), but they effectively become restricted once you are paying for them. Wether by extra cost, or influencing your choice in other ways, we are paying.

Why would you pay to watch TV3 On Demand when you can a watch TVNZ On-Demand for free with Orcon or Snap? How do TV3 feel about that? Why would you *hypothetically* pay to browse Sella on your Vodafone mobile when you could browse Trade Me for free?
(This feature was available for a while in 2008)
Turns out if you would like to stream TV on-demand on your Tivo without paying a fortune, you only get that if you are on Telecom.
How is all of this fair?

Would you pay to browse Stuff on your mobile, when you could browse the NZherald, for free? How would Stuff feel about that?

More importantly, when we are influenced where/how we get our news, or at the basic level our information and media, where does that leave freedom of speech if we are persuaded through our wallets (or even without us knowing) not to listen to that particular person or article? How is that just and right?

The chance for ISPs to be influenced by different media companies and then directing your attention to their payees’ sites is there, it is probably happening right now.

Ben Gracewood has this to say:

it’s also a barely discernible line between‘it’s good for you’ and ‘it’s for your own good’. I can easily imagine the statement becoming “YouTube is the single biggest site used by our customers” … and it’s affecting our other traffic, so we need to charge extra for full-speed access.

Please comment below and add to this discussion. I would really like to hear what you have to say.

UPDATE: Facebook has just announced a partnership with 50 mobile operators worldwide to provide un-metered Facebook access via a newly-developed portal 0.facebook.com, and in New Zealand that partnership will be with Telecom.

Did you need any more reasons to be confused about which operator to sign up to?