Unblock Hulu Outside the US with a VPN

Are you a fan of Hulu’s free video streaming service or Hulu Plus premium access?  If so you’ll be glad to know that you can access Hulu from anywhere in the world using VPN.  A fast personal VPN service will let you connect to servers in the United States and obtain a US IP address.  Regardless of where you might be located at the time.  Giving you the flexibility to access Hulu from anywhere in the world.

Unblock Hulu with VPN

How will VPN help you unblock Hulu?

Here’s a quick summary of how a VPN service can help you stream Hulu content from outside the United States:

  • VPN allows you to assume an IP address in the United States.
  • All traffic is routed through a secure tunnel to help ensure your privacy.
  • Speed is essential for streaming.  VPN can help you achieve the best performance.

As you can see a good privacy service will allow you to tunnel to a server in the US and enjoy Hulu while abroad.

Connecting to Hulu through a VPN service

We’ll show you exactly how to sign up for a VPN service and connect to Hulu from outside the US.  Remember that you’ll need a fast connection.  For this reason there are a lot of VPN providers that don’t have the bandwidth to support Hulu.  Two of our favorites for speed and reliability are IPVanish and Hide My Ass.

We’ll be using IPVanish for our guide since they have the fastest VPN connections to their US servers.   The first thing you’ll need to do is sign up for IPVanish.  Sign up for unlimited VPN access from just $6.49 a month.

IPVanish $6.49 Special

After signing up for IPVanish you will receive a welcome email.  From there you can either follow the link in the email or go to their site and download the VPN software.  IPVanish offers a free VPN client for Windows and Mac.  They also support iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the IPVanish client go ahead and open it.  You’ll see this screen:

IPVanish Client

From here you can choose the US server location that provides the best performance.  The “Response” column in the client is a good indicator of the best servers to choose from.  When you first open the software the “Response” column will be blank for a few seconds while it pings the server locations.  A low ping “Response” time means low latency between your system and the server.  Allowing for the fastest possible connection.

Not to make things too technical.  You can connect to any IPVanish server.  They offer locations throughout the United States.  If you ever want an IP from elsewhere they have VPN servers located in 41 different countries.  As a member you can switch between them anytime.  With up to two simultaneous connections.

You’ll notice some options at the bottom for OpenVPN, PPTP and L2TP.  These have to do with the protocol used to access the IPVanish servers.  You can test each to see which one works best from your location.  For streaming content like Hulu we recommend you use OpenVPN (UDP) for the best performance.

That’s all there is to it.  A US IP also gives you access to Netflix, Pandora, Skype, Facebook and many more sites.  Follow us on Twitter @VPNSP for more how-to guides along with VPN reviews and special offers.