Access Hulu From Outside The US Without A Proxy Server

We’ve featured one or two ways to watch Hulu from outside the US, but one user over at Reddit has discovered a fairly easy way, without an outside proxy server, to watch Hulu just by closing a few ports.

The hack requires Firefox, along with the Modify Headers add-on. All you need to do is install the add-on, go to Tools > Modify Headers and add a new one. In the first box, type X-Forwarded-For and in the second box, type in the IP adddress of any US website. Leave the other box blank and save the filter.

Then, block TCP and UDP port 1935. To do so on Mac, all you need to do is type the following in a Terminal window:

sudo ipfw add 0 deny tcp from any to any 1935

sudo ipfw add 0 deny udp from any to any 1935

Linux users can install iptables to do it through Terminal as well, with the commands:

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport 1935 -j DROP

iptables -A INPUT -p udp –dport 1935 -j DROP

Windows users should be able to follow these instructions to correctly block the ports.

This method should allow access not just to Hulu, but many other US-only streaming sites. Note that this may disable Flash on other sites, so you’ll only want to enable this while you’re watching video on one of these sites. We Lifehacker editors are all in the US, however, so we can’t verify the efficacy of this method. Thus, be sure to let us know what does and does not work for you in the comments, and we’ll edit the post accordingly. Also be sure to check out the original post at Reddit and the comments over there, as they have been honing the method quite well.

HULU BREAKTHROUGH!! I am watching Hulu in Canada right now! Without a proxy server. Anyone else care to test? [Reddit]