Watching the BBC while outside the UK
Do you live in the UK and own a TV license ? The BBC have a system in place to restrict access to its contents based on your originating country, tied to your physical IP address, that meaning the system prevents you from watching the BBC content outside the UK.
But what about the British people, say on holidays in Spain, that want to catch up on Eastenders or Top Gear, and instead they are stuck with local television in a language they can not (barely) understand, and that, at the most if lucky, might have nothing available in English language on TV (and most everywhere) but the horrendous CNN ?
Since the restriction is made by originating country, you can get access to something you already paid your TV license for, abroad, by piggy-backing into a computer physically sitting in the UK.
Please remember – the BBCi Player will still ask if you have paid for your TV license or not, to which you should have done so; it is not because it is in the Internet that it frees you up from paying your TV license – so when prompted if you have paid for your TV license or not, please answer yes or no as adequate – by following the steps below, you confirm that you have paid for your TV license back in the UK, thus you have the right to watch the content you have already paid for. Otherwise, please follow ahead to the BBC website; above it all, it is a matter of Ethics.
This free technique uses the Tor network (“Tor”, as in Torrent), and free software to connect you to a series of computers running in the UK, as if you were in the UK yourself, so while half of you is abroad, the other half is still in the UK.
Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.
If you have no Firefox, download and install it first. You can use any browser, but Firefox is the default browser. You might download the entire Tor bundle instead, which also includes the browser within.
To get the BBCi player working, install the Vidalia bundle, run the service, then open in a common text editor the configuration file for the Tor network, normally stored at
C:Documents and Settings(your user)Application DataVidaliatorrc
The correct file path and name is written in the Vidalia Control Panel – click on “Settings”,then “Advanced” – it will be the text in the “Tor Configuration File” field.
Paste this 2 lines at the top of the Tor configuration file described above,
ExitNodes PDQVPNUK1, PDQVPNUK2, st0nerhenge
StrictExitNodes 1
Save, exit and start the Vidalia (right click the onion in thedesktray) Control Panel again – that will set you as always coming from the UK.
The first line “ExitNodes” tells what servers to use, and this will be the servers forwarding you the content.
You can get a full list of available servers at
All servers marked as exit point and with an UK flag in them are good – you can switch servers until you find one that is fast and reliable.
Launch Firefox, the Tor plugin should have been installed already, right click the onion in the Firefox’s bottom toolbar, then click “preferences”, then “security settings”, and uncheck “Disable plugins during tor usage” box – you can try leaving it enabled to see if it works at first, if not, uncheck it – now go to the “headers” tab, make sure both first check boxes are ticked, and press “Ok”.
Now, right click the onion in the Firefox’s bottom toolbar and press “Toggle for status” – the onion icon will go green.
Point Firefox to
Try any program to see if it works for you.
The Vidalia Control Panel “settings” tab have plenty configuration options that might be of use – for example, the ability to use non-standard ports and mechanisms, in case you are not able to connect to the Tor network by one reason or another.
If your connection is fast enough, you might donate some of it to other users of the network – your IP address will not be exposed, it will only be used as random nodes inside the network itself.
Just click the “Setup Relaying” button in the Vidalia Control Panel.
By doing so, you will not only be “physically” sitting in the UK, but you will also be helping users in internet-censored countries to reach the Internet in its full.
