Thinking of using a proxy server. How good are they?

[AgProv]

I'm getting hacked off with not being able to access some media content, ie some music videos, TV shows, et c, because the content is "not available to me where I live" or "the copyright owner has placed restrictions..." or "sod off, you live in the wrong country". This is particularly galling with some music videos I used to be able to freely watch on You-Tube in Britain with no restrictions - until Sony Music Entertainment got their grubby fingers on them and imposed restrictions.

I've heard proxy servers allow you to get round this.

Do they work for this purpose, how reliable are they, and are there any drawbacks?

BTW, I do not like yahoo adding adverts to the bottom of questions based on question content. Anything that may be advertised when this question goes live was not chosen by me, is not endorsed by me, and is likely to be defective, dangerous, toxic, shoddy, poisonous or just downright crap. If any adverts for SME come up, then the above applies tenfold - SME are money-grubbing scumbags. Thank you.

[Jennifer]

There ok to use, but rather slow. I use one with mozilla to access videos on youtube that are not available in my country.

I use this one.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox...src=search

No problems so far - just dont expect your usual speeds while using a proxy.

[Michael]

Please note that there are different types of proxy services. When talking about proxies people think about a location that the browser can tunnel your traffic through, but note that there are transparent and anonymous proxies.

Transparent will give you their address but they will also provide your address to the destination you want to browser.

Jeniffer is right about the speeds - even most of the paid services have slow speeds.

If you wanna watch movies, music on yt, etc. I would advice you to get HMA (hide my azz) or something link this. I know it costs money and it is sometimes slow but with the free proxies you never know what the previous user have done just before you and you can become suspected.... Hide My Azz is not exactly a proxy, but instead can tunnel all your traffic through a destination of your choice. You can be in USA, Colorado, New York, France (Paris), Copenhagen, somewhere in the Asia - there are lots of location you can choose. And most importantly it is anonymous.

[t2kmf]

Yeah there a bunch of proxies you can setup in any of the browsers. If the content is country blocked then the proxy will work. I suggest using a proxy in a country that is relatively close but not blocked like maybe France or Italy. It kind of depends on who blocked it on whether it will work. Dont bother with eastern european coutries because that's the piracy capital of the world. Everyone blocks them from everything they can.

[Ilanka]

We endorse utilizing http://www.vpnpower.net for you to unblock web sites. I've been using them since 5 years.

[Myrtle]

My partner and i recommend using http://www.vpnpower.net to be able to unblock web sites. I have been using them since 5 years.