Ok, given that my most popular post ever concerns how to unblock the video on Comedy Central websites, I reckon I should turn it up a notch. What if I reveal how to watch the programming of nearly every channel in America!

Got your attention? Good, because what follows is gold Jerry gold!

Because Hulu is for American TV a kind of super BBC iPlayer, 4OD, Demand 5 and ITV Player all rolled into one. Hundreds of channels, a smorgasbord of US drama, a cornucopia of American comedy, and for that matter, a cesspit of crappy reality shows.

But that’s not the point, what you watch is up to you, the perennial problem is that from this side of the Atlantic all the precious content is ceremonially blocked once they realise that you’re not a damn yankee.

Not now though, now there’s a dandy way to doodle Hulu into thinking you are a yankee and it really could not be simpler.

All you need is to use Firefox or Chrome as your browser, download one single add-on called Media Hint freely available for each, and that’s it. No further instructions necessary, no extra fiddling, not another solitary thing to do except go to hulu.com and start wasting some more of your life.

Now then, apart from directing certain traffic through a US proxy I’m really not sure how Media Hint’s clever voodoo actually works, but work it definitely does. And you can download your own Media Hint for Firefox and Media Hint for Chrome by clicking these links to whichever flavour you prefer.

All I can confirm is that both versions work perfectly for me, access to the videos is fast with great quality and it doesn’t seem to affect other web browsing either. It is fairly new though and its origins are Latvian so if you’re the nervous type at all I suppose you can simply disable it when you aren’t using it.

The other bonus with Media Hint is that it doesn’t just fool Hulu’s geo-blocking, it’s the key that unlocks other previously stubborn network websites as well, like Fox.com and CBS.com. That’s right folks, finally a way to watch Letterman and Craig Ferguson! And it’ll let you into US Netflix (don’t get too excited, you would still have to pay) and Pandora the music radio site which is free and rather good.

In fact the only trouble with Media Hint is that it works so well, without the VPN hassle/expense usually required to crack Hulu and the networks, that the bastards will surely try and stop it soon.

So what are you waiting for, Download Media Hint immediately. Make the most of this gloriously simple way to all the American TV we don’t get, the latest of what we do get and what we’ve already gotten but want to watch again, while you can.

But I’ll let ya know now, Dave Letterman’s wig still doesn’t look convincing.

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IMPORTANT UPDATE:

Alas it was too good to last.
Not that they’ve taken Media Hint away, but as of April 2014 if you download Media Hint now you have to sign up for an account with them and there’s a monthly fee of $3.95 a month.
Although for me, having downloaded it previously, the thing seems to work just as it did before but new folks are going to have to make a choice.
Sorry people, it was golden for over a year but some of Media Hint’s lustre has obviously rubbed off.
But all is not totally lost. To watch other select channels that are normally blocked unless you’re in America, like Comedy Central for The Daily Show and Colbert Report, there’s still my instructions for another free add-on called Modify Headers.
You can read the instructions here:
https://xtremisreaction.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/how-to-watch-the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-in-the-uk/

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Tagged: How to watch American TV in the UK, How to watch Craig Ferguson in the UK, How to watch David Letterman in the UK, How to watch Hulu in the UK