Best 5 Solutions to Overcome Geo Blocking – Reason for Geo Blocking

What is Geo Blocking? What is the Reason for Geo Block? Main Solutions to Overcome Geo Blocking Using VPN, Proxies, Smart DNS, and Using TOR.

Restrictions are becoming one of the biggest challenges for many internet users, especially online brands. People now have to deal with various kinds of restrictions as they roam the internet. Many of these restrictions are legitimate and placed out of genuine concern.

And one of such legitimate restrictions is geo-blocking. Geo-blocks are placed because business owners do not want infringement or having their products and services shown to those; who are not their target market or placed by governments to prevent their citizens from accessing certain content.

However, they can hold negative consequences for online companies who need content and user data from every part of the internet to create insights and make informed business decisions.

For this reason, these brands need to learn just how to overcome the different restrictions.

Main Solutions to Overcome Geo Blocking

Geo block is an application of certain internet protocol and technology that blocks or prevents access to content based entirely on physical location. The technology usually engineered to deny or grant access usually does so by reading the user’s location. Once it is identified to be from a forbidden location, access is terminated immediately.

When used by private organizations, geo-blocking could be done for any of the following reasons:

1) To Protect Copyrighted and Licensed Properties

In certain industries such as the movie and sports industries; it is well known that brands have to buy rights to certain content and decide where to air such content to make the most gains. Geo blocking is, therefore, their best bet at protecting that copyright; and ensuring people who might infringe on it do not get access to those content.

2) For Target Marketing

Geo blocking is also an excellent technology for ensuring that only a company’s target market is allowed access to its content. This is important to help the brand focus more on their customers and deliver better service or market better products.

Regardless of what the reason for the geo blocking is, brands that are blocked still need to access the restricted content if they intend to play in the global competition. The need to overcome geo blocking has given rise to different tools and software; some very effective and others not so much.

Four of the most effective ways to bypass geo blocking are discussed below:

1) Using VPN

VPN or Virtual Private Network is a third-party network that allows you full access to any website; including the restricted ones while concealing your IP address; making it impossible for access to be denied to you since websites mostly identify your location using your IP.

Also, connections done with VPNs are safe and secured, as most VPNs boasts data encryption.

However, not all VPNs work in all locations; and those that do may experience a large crowd which could make them relatively slow to use.

2) Using Smart DNS

A DNS can be effective against geo blocking, but it works a little differently from how a VPN works.

First, these tools do not conceal your IP, but instead, try to act instead of your internet service provider (ISP) assigned DNS address. That way, the target server sees a different address. Taking it even further, a DNS usually strips your outgoing request of any information that any hints at your physical location; and replaces it with information that tells that you are connecting from a non-forbidden location.

All this works to make restricted content available to you even from a blocked location. A Smart DNS does not intercept or read your data, making it faster than a regular VPN. On the downside, it does leave your data vulnerable as it does not include data encryption.

3) Using TOR

While many of the best ways to hide your location cost money, a few others are free; and TOR is considered the best free option. The Onion Router (TOR) is a free service that helps to hide your true location through interconnected nodes run by several volunteers.

Working together, these nodes help ensure that the location that appears on the target website is anyone belonging to any of the volunteers. This offers you the chance to access content from multiple “borrowed” locations.

The greatest advantage of using TOR is that it is free; while its greatest disadvantage is that it can be easily blocked by ISPs and governments if the nodes are discovered. So Tor is the best solution to get a ride from Geo blocking.

4) Using Proxies

A better alternative to all the options above is through the use of proxies. A proxy service is a tool that can effectively stand as an intermediary gateway between you and the target website. By standing in the middle, proxies can do a lot of good. They intercept requests, modify them, and transfer them using their IP address and location. Hence, not only do proxies hide IP, but they also easily change location. For instance, a brand trying to access restricted content in Japan can use a Japanese proxy to quickly switch the user’s location to Japan thereby eliminating the geo-block. Visit the Oxylabs website for more information about a Japanese proxy.

Proxies as the Best Solution

However, Proxies are more preferred option for eliminating geo blocking; because they combine all the best parts of other options. Proxies can make safe, secure, and quick connections on your behalf while hiding both your IP and location. Also, they are harder to ban as they come with a large pool of proxies which they constantly rotate to prevent websites from ever identifying you.

Last Word about Geo Blocking

Geo blocking has become a serious problem that has come to stay; and like every problem, there is a solution, or in this case, four effective solutions. Proxies are the best of all four as they can hide IP, change locations; and assign DNS address delivering and returning communications at a very fast rate.