Recently, a new free service called
Tunlr has emerged that allows users to access services blocked outside the United States. But Tunlr does not provide VPN service. It is a DNS unblocking service that uses a combination of a DNS server and a collection of proxies in various countries to go around the geographical block. The user simply change their DNS servers to those provided by Tunlr. After doing this, they are able to bypass the block and access Hulu, Netflix, Pandora and any of the supported services.
Unlike VPN, where the content is routed through the VPN servers, with Tunlr users are able to stream directly from the blocked service with no intermediary servers in between, which means you can get faster download/streaming speeds that a VPN.
What's great about this service is it is totally FREE.
Tunlr can unblock the following services:
- US video streaming services: Netflix, Hulu, CBS, ABC, MTV, theWB, CW TV, Crackle, NBC, Fox, TV.com, PBS, Vevo, History, Lifetime TV,
- US audio streaming services: Pandora, Last.fm, Turntable.fm, Mog.com, iHeartRadio,
- Non-US services: BBC iPlayer (UK), Channel4 4oD (UK), iTV Player (UK), and Zattoo (Germany).
How Does Tunlr Work? Tunlr uses two main components - a DNS server and a collection of proxies located in different countries. When your computer sends a DNS query for a blocked website, for example, hulu.com, instead Hulu’s real IP address, the Tunlr DNS server returns the IP addresses of a proxy server operated by Tunlr in the US.
When your connection is received by Tunlr’s proxy in the correct country, it is forwarded to the service provider e.g. Hulu. For Hulu, you appear to be in the correct country because it sees the IP address of the proxy server located in the US.
Once the IP address check is passed, and your connection established, Tunlr re-introduces your true IP address into the data stream so that the video content is streamed directly to your computer and not through Tunlr’s proxy server.
In order not to overwhelm their DNS servers with request, Tunlr
strongly recommends that you switch to their DNS servers only when required to access the blocked services.