ProxMate is one such simple tool that lets you view blocked videos from anywhere in the world. You can straightaway start using it without any worries. It is available as an extension from Chrome and as an addon for Firefox. If you are interested in its working, we have made a short series of questions for your better understanding of this topic. Why some videos are not available in your country? One word most appropriate answer will be music rights. Most often content creators license or sell their copyright to distributors in different locations for convenient royalty collection. Now, these distributors have rights only in their territory and cannot display or sell in another territory. Hence, a location restriction exists on some videos. For example, Sony Music videos are not available in Germany because German rights group GEMA’s policies demand revenue sharing for showing artists videos on YouTube. Read more about this case here.
In some cases, videos are also blocked on request from government or court because of controversies or legal complaints associated with them. Read more about such videos here. How video restrictions work? YouTube provides option to publishers to broadcast their videos globally or to specific territories as per their licensing rights. With the help of IP address, YouTube can determine viewer’s location and connection details. If the IP address falls under the list of restricted zones mentioned by the video publisher, then YouTube automatically stops video streaming and displays a user notification. Can we bypass these restrictions? Yes. If we can trick YouTube that the video request is from another country, then we can sidestep these restrictions. What is the easiest way to bypass these restrictions? The easiest way to unblock is through any proxy website. Such websites route your video request to a proxy server situated in another country. Thus YouTube cannot determine your location through IP address because it is masked with fake foreign server. However they are insecure and full of annoying advertisements. Also, these proxy websites are blocked regularly and you will have to always keep searching for new ones. Is this legal? Absolutely not. How is ProxMate different? ProxMate offers a security layer by employing network of protected and undisclosed proxies. That means routing your content through safe and trusted network. Also it is an open source project meaning anyone can review its code. Along with YouTube, this tool also allows full access to Grooveshark, Hulu, Netflix and Google Play Store. You can also specify your own proxy for complete peace of mind. ProxMate did not work for me. Are there any other alternatives? Yes. You can also try similar tools like MediaHint, Hola or ProxTube or you can even setup your own VPN to hide your IP address. We have found ProxMate better than other tools. Try it out yourself and let us know the reviews.
