"hide my ass" is far superior for vpn and wireless vpn

My adventures with VPNs, wireless VPNs, and other fun IP-address changes just keep getting better all the time. My new favourite addition is called HideMyAss - a stupid name, but a terrific service.

When I last updated you on our awesome wireless VPN + Roku experience, we were using two separate routers - one for wireless VPN, and one for everything else. This was necessary because MLB.TV - through which we watch baseball on our TV, via Roku - didn't get along with the wireless VPN router. The feed would continually stop for buffering, making it impossible to follow a game. To watch baseball, we would use our regular router, with our normal Canadian IP address. To watch US Netflix, we'd use the router with the non-Canadian IP address.

Flipping routers, as we call it, was no big deal. But recently, anytime I was using the wireless VPN router, my internet connection would slow to a crawl. Plus the selection of IP addresses offered by Acevpn was getting less and less reliable. And the only way to find out if a particular IP address woud work was to try it. That meant going into the router, manually changing the gateway IP address, waiting a few minutes, seeing if it worked. If it didn't, try another. And another.

Recently it dawned on me that perhaps the VPN service itself was the problem. The original instructions that I used to set up our wireless VPN mentioned HMA (and for all I know, it is stealth marketing for HMA), so I tried them.

They are great! Here's why.

1. HMA has hundreds of IP addresses all over the world. By contrast, Acevpn had a dozen or so in the US and a handful in the UK.

2. For the standard VPN connection, on your computer, you can download and install their software. It gives you a handy, user-friendly dashboard with a simple on/off button and a full choice of IP addresses. No fiddling with routers or code.

3. You can test the IP addresses before you choose one!

4. And, most importantly for users of Roku or other streaming devices, HMA's wireless VPN does not interfere with any other internet functions. We can watch MLB via Roku from a "different location" with no buffering issues.

This rocks.

Canadians, there is no reason to put up with the sub-standard content available on Netflix Canada, or to be blacked out of sports you want to see, and which you are already paying for.

We're not stealing. Netflix and MLB are still getting their monthly fees. We're just not letting Rogers dictate what we can and can't see.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

sharia

This morning I see that Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, is banning the Muslim religious court known as sharia . This ends months of debate about whether sharia would be legal and binding in Ontario. I'm quoting at length from the story in today's Toronto Star because many US readers are likely not up on this. In a surprise announcement that caught both supporters and opponents of sharia law off guard, Premier Dalton McGuinty says he will move quickly to ban all religious arbitration in the province. McGuinty made the announcement in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press yesterday after months of debate and controversy surrounding use of Islamic sharia law in family arbitration. "I've come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough," the premier told the news agency. "There will be no sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians." The announcement prompted t...
Read more

can of worms

I'm opening a sticky subject here, my need to understand causing me to throw caution to the wind. It's about Alberta. Alberta vs. the rest of the Canada. The Globe And Mail runs something about Alberta's gripes every day, and I try to follow along. If it weren't for wmtc's resident Albertan , and the ensuing arguments in comments, I would've had no warning. It's not something Americans know about. As is, observing for more than a year, I have only the smallest of clues. Here's what I know. Please pardon my ignorance and oversimplification, but I have to start somewhere. The province of Alberta is rich, because it has oil. The province of Alberta is conservative, relative to the rest of Canada. Hmm. Funny how those two go together. Because of its great oil wealth, Alberta revenue helps fund services in the rest of Canada. (These are transfer payments?) Apparently many Albertans resent this. They want to keep Alberta's money in Alberta. They don't...
Read more

low confidence

I'm excited about today's no-confidence vote . Only three months after moving here, we'll get to see a government fall, a campaign, and an election, in a system very different from what we're accustomed to. Even the expression "the government will fall" strikes us as oddly dramatic and revolutionary. My sense of current Canadian politics, for what it's worth, tells me that very little will change from the upcoming election. I'd be surprised if the Liberals didn't win. So it's kind of cool to see this happening without a lot at stake. On a semi-tangential note, have I mentioned I'm completely down with "Corner Gas"? Excellent show; I love the deadpan humour. (Great website, too; check it out .) So was that really Finance Minister Ralph Goodale ragging on Brent Butt's camera last Saturday night?
Read more