Yes a rather crazy post I must admit, but is a result of the my email when I ask for support. Fortunately not everyone pays me in chocolate, otherwise my running would go downhill and I could not afford to pay for the server to run the proxy.
Saying that I have to admit it is always nice to receive something in exchange now and again and recently I finished one rather box of mixed chocolates from Poland and about a week later on my 50th birthday
would you believe I had another box from Austria.
Well it seems about time someone else posted a comment!
I’ve been living in Spain for 10 years and TV has always been an issue. I am not a telly addict, but do like access to domestic UK news and current affairs programs. I am fluent in Spanish so that’s not a problem but Spanish TV is terribly boring – well it is to me – and when watching my mind goes numb.
I am lucky always to have had the space to install a big (120cms) satellite dish and the know-how to set it up. This has not been a perfect solution as I manage to keep too busy to sit down on the sofa and moronically watch the box. I have always done my moronic watching in bed – and my last two bedrooms have been too small to install a TV big enough to see at a distance of 3m.
Thus I started to look at VPNs. If you Google the subject you will find a wealth of information and literally hundreds of people offering a service both free and for a price. The price seems to vary between €3 and €13 per month and the free ones are, shall we say, free!
There aint no free lunch these days and free may be relative. Free means you get to watch some unwanted publicity material – Free means you will get more spam in your email – Free means your security may be at risk from malware – Free may mean it works with limited bandwidth or sometimes doesn’t work at all.
Before I realised Free wasn’t really Free I out tried several Free and Free-to-Try VPNs. Some didn’t work at all, some were rubbish, some imposed restrictions until you upgraded, some were free-to-try but didn’t say so until you had downloaded, most wanted to install a taskbar and one did so without permission (and it was hell to get rid of and kept reinstalling itself).
One of the free ones has worked well for a year – it is installed as an application and connects when I click its icon. It is still on my Windows desktop and I still use it occasionally. I am not going to say what it is because a lot of expats have commented it is no good! (I am beginning to suspect this program is causing the computer to freeze periodically and think I should uninstall it).
Then one day I stumbled on Stephen’s blog. I contacted Steven and he set me up almost instantly. Nothing was installed on my system (so far as I know) but I did install at Stephen’s tentative suggestion an app called Foxy Proxy but never activated it (I don’t like making a payment on the trust it wont be charged if I cancel if I cancel within 3 days)! As I never really want to watch live TV on a PC I have not used Stephen’s VPN that way except to try it. It worked fine.
However, Stephen has changed my life! I have always dreamt of having a mini personal TV. Something to watch in bed in the wee hours and if need be without disturbing my bedmate. The bedmate gave me a iPad Mini for Christmas and iTunes gave me apps for BBC/ITV/Channel 4 and Stephen gave me the ability to see these when outside UK.
It is brilliant! The definition of an iPad screen on your chest is the same as you would perceive with a 6ft screen on the wall … in my case is better as I am a one eyed man!
I have the idea that many of the commercial sellers of VPN services may be just as bad as the free ones when it comes to earning a few extra bucks from devious practices. I don’t know Stephen personally but from my electronic contacts with him (across the Sierra Nevada from where I live) I already consider him a friend and I am sure he is not in the VPN business with ultra commercial ambitions – his business is selling running gear at http://www.naked-runner.com/.
Not being a runner I cant endorse his running stuff but I certainly do endorse his VPN and proxy. If TV is your thing I suggest you give it a try!