Netflix, Hulu: Testing to see if I can appear to be originating from the USA

[Vmaster 2]

Hello,

I am only a couple days into the wonderful world of VPN, so please be patient with my questions and conclusions. 

 

One of my first tests to verify if AirVPN was working was to see if I can get access to Hulu videos and US Netflix.  I live in Canada where Hulu is blocked and Netflix queries are redirected to a Canadian Netflix site https://www.netflix.com/ca/ (note the "ca" on the end).

 

After trying all the 11 US AirVPN servers to access Hulu, all of them gave me the geolocation error:

"Based on your IP address, we noticed you are trying to access Hulu through an anonymous proxy tool....not currently available outside the U.S. If you're in the U.S., you'll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu. ..."

 

I tried Hulu using Google Chrome with my Google Account logged in, I tried Hulu with a Google Incognito, and I tried it with MS Internet Explorer.  All instances failed.

 

When attempting to access US Netflix from a US AirVPN server, it routed me to the Canadian server when I used Google Chrome with my Google account logged in.

When I tried Google Incognito and MS Internet Explorer it routed to the US Netflix site!

Interesting test for Netflix... possibly something to do with my Google Account?  Obviously better to browse with Google Incognito on...

 

Ok, back to Hulu.

I wonder how Hulu determines the connection originates in the US? I am starting to wonder if it is not just IP Address but other determiners as well.  

When reading this post: https://airvpn.org/topic/13664-please-help-with-my-conundrum/

The poster tested 2 different ISP services from the same place.  One was able to access Hulu and the other one was not. The poster then wondered if the failing ISP tagged traffic with some sort of country-of-origin data so that Hulu could verify US location even after the query exited the US VPN.

 

To loosely support this claim, I have a friend who lives in a different Canadian city from me also using AirVPN.  He recently subscribed to a different ISP (different from mine).  I asked him to test a US Hulu Link and he was successful.  He said he was not using any different protocols just the connection GUI "out-of-the-box" on his Mac.

I was baffled.

Now, Hulu is not really important to me, it was merely a test of the anonymity of the service.  What concerned me was the lack of true anonymity.  I wondered if there was something I was missing in my setup, or if there was something about my ISP?  I am using the latest AirVPN GUI (2.8.8) on my Windows 7 64-bit machine.

 

Any help would to unravel my mystery would be appreciated, Thanks!

[Staff 10116]

Hello,

 

unfortunately Hulu blocks all of our servers. It has nothing to do with anonymity layer or similar arguments.

 

Kind regards

[Vmaster 2]

Staff,

Thank you for your reply and taking the mystery out of this!

I hope this will not be an increasing issue with more sites and businesses as they start to identify anonymous traffic servers.  Is this something you have been discussing internally?  I hope there are clever contingencies you can employ.

 

 

Thanks again,

Vmaster