Geo-restriction is a kind of technology that gives people in particular location access to some web content while restricting people in other locations access to the same content. Geo-restriction technology makes use of the location settings on your computer or mobile device, your IP address and GPS, to determine if you should get access to certain web content, or if it should redirect you to another content available for your region. This article reveals how to unlock any geo-restricted content when browsing with your Mac, by hiding your IP address with a VPN, using Proxy servers, and so on.

Ways to unblock geo-restricted content from your Mac

The easiest technique you can use to bypass geo-restrictions is by hiding your geolocation or IP address when you’re on a website that uses geo-restriction technology. Let’s look at four different ways you can breach geo-restrictions by using the best free VPN for Mac.

1. Using a VPN to unlock geo-restriction

VPN services help you access geo-restricted content by replacing the IP address of your Mac with the IP address of the VPN server. If you connect to a VPN that uses a Canadian IP address, for instance, you’d be able to view content restricted to only people in Canada. VPNs come with special encryptions that protect your bandwidth from ISP throttling. One downside of using VPN, however, is that you may experience slow connectivity.

2. Unlock Geo-restriction on your Mac with a Proxy

Proxies, just like VPN, hides web users’ IP address by serving as an intermediary between the website and the network with which you’re browsing on your Mac. Proxy service also stores cache from your browsing history so you can quickly access any website you’ve visited before.

Proxy servers are often overcrowded. Hence it comes with limited bandwidth and offers very little internet security. Aside from the slow connectivity, you should also note that the owner of the proxy will be able to view your real IP address whenever you access an HTTP connection.

3. Use Smart DNS to unlock geo-restriction

Apart from your IP address, your ISP-assigned DNS address also contains some information that reveals your geolocation. When you use a smart DNS on your Mac, it masks your ISP-assigned DNS and replaces it with another one from the location to which the content is available.

Smart DNS also scans through your connection requests and replaces all data traceable to your location with data from the location where the content is available. Smart DNS, unlike VPN, doesn’t come with any encryption, so it doesn’t slow down your web connectivity. But then, it leaves you vulnerable online.

4. Unlock geo-restriction on your Mac with The Onion Router (Tor)

Tor is a free service that hides IP address (hence your location) when you send or access data on the internet. Tor makes your online activities untraceable bypassing your web traffic through multiple relay nodes.

Tor may, however, not be the best option for unlocking geo-restriction on your Mac, as ISPs can block it, and it comes with slow internet connectivity. Also, the government may decide to ban its use.

So, there you have it, all four ways you can unlock geo-restriction from your Mac, and enjoy any web content you want, without being restricted because of your geographical location.