Watching UK TV on your computer.

 

I’ve written a number of times before about UK TV on your computer, and the various ways and options for watching UK TV (or other services like Netflix or Lovefilm) while in France. Now that a large number of us have lost the BBC and very soon ITV and channel 4, many of us are looking around for a way to get our daily fix of UK TV especially the UK News.

There are many ways to get UK TV via the computer but the well know services like iPlayer do not easily work from here in France. There however some very good free services that allow you to watch TV on computers, tablets, phones and some set-top boxes to start TV’s.

 

Filmon.com- They allow you to watch most free-to-air channels live in your web browser or via very good iPad, and Android apps or via there own player software for Windows or Mac. www.filmon.com

 

Its also very safe as you are not linking to a remote server, and best of all its free for the standard definition version. They do offer High Definition but only to subscribers.

 

 

Anonomox - pluging for the Firefox browser is another safe option, it hides your location so that you can connect to the iPlayer and all other UK TV sites like ITV player, C4 and C5. Some of there site allow you to watch live TV as well as previously broadcast programs. www.anonymox.net

 

UnoTelly, safe a reliable costing around 3€80 per month or 38 euros for the year. This service works by rewriting the DNS from your computers internet connection to one of their DNS servers and their server recodes it before sending it to the BBC, ITV, Netflix sites etc. so the sites think they are communicating with your computer as if it were in the UK (I’ve greatly simplified what is actually happening). The advantage it is much faster than VPN and also completely Safe. It can be a little tricky to setup, but the quick setup guide they provide is very good. Go to www.Unotelly.com for more information.

 

VPN - (virtual private network) services like Expat shield, iPortal, StrongVPN, these types of service do carry a risk. The risk small but something you should be aware of if you are going to use this kind of service. The risk is that the link you make between your computer and the VPN server is two way, it was designed for office staff to be able to access a company server across the internet so the information needs to flow both ways. So when you are watching TV is possible (however highly unlikely) that someone else on the server end could be looking through your computer.

 

 

It’s for this reason I do not recommend these services, unless you have a computer or laptop that has no data on it or have it through a VPN router protected with a firewall.

 

If you need help or have any questions about your computer please give me a call or send me an email for FREE advice.

Bruce@mirax.org or Telephone 05 61 60 84 23.