Using AOL to obtain a U.S. IP address

[crsheilah]

I have had no experience trying this, it was posted on another forum and I'd appreciate hearing from anyone living in a non-US country who does try it. It would eliminate all those problems of booksellers not willing to sell ebooks outside the U.S. and also allow you to watch U.S. TV programs which I haven't been able to do in Costa Rica.


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You use AOL

1. Download AOL Desktop (free) and signup for a free account
2. Install it
3. Change your connection settings for the software, chose "connect options" go to the broadband tab, and from the top left chose "add broadband profile" then for the settings chose connection type: Home Network that is all you need to change.
4. Connect using these new settings, you should now have a USA IP Address
5. In your browser go to whatsmyip address website and you can check to make sure you have a USA IP

Works for me, sometimes I have to restart my computer or modem because AOL won't connect sometimes.

Another alternative which is good also but costs $10/month is strongvpn.com use their "lite open" package there are other security benefits to using a VPN over AOL. They will give you a San Francisco or other USA IP so you can watch Hulu and the other ones like ABC, NBC, Fox, etc.

[DuncanWatson]

A number of friends of mine used some of the vpn services to get Canadian IPs so that we could watch the Canadian Olympic tv feeds rather than the poor choices of US feeds.

These solutions work well. Heck I used to use my corporate VPN to get a US ip when I was travelling overseas.

[suecsi]

HideMyIP works well. I've been using the trial version but I might buy - although my ebook purchases are well down now as the prices of most of what I want has gone up, plus the book stores aren't allowed to offer any rebate or rewards on them - I had built up quite a rewards balance on BooksOnBoard but have spent nearly all of it now. Quite a few of the books now have the 'price set by publisher' tag and no rewards anymore.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by crsheilah

I have had no experience trying this, it was posted on another forum and I'd appreciate hearing from anyone living in a non-US country who does try it. It would eliminate all those problems of booksellers not willing to sell ebooks outside the U.S. and also allow you to watch U.S. TV programs which I haven't been able to do in Costa Rica.


****************************************
You use AOL

1. Download AOL Desktop (free) and signup for a free account
2. Install it
3. Change your connection settings for the software, chose "connect options" go to the broadband tab, and from the top left chose "add broadband profile" then for the settings chose connection type: Home Network that is all you need to change.
4. Connect using these new settings, you should now have a USA IP Address
5. In your browser go to whatsmyip address website and you can check to make sure you have a USA IP

Works for me, sometimes I have to restart my computer or modem because AOL won't connect sometimes.

Another alternative which is good also but costs $10/month is strongvpn.com use their "lite open" package there are other security benefits to using a VPN over AOL. They will give you a San Francisco or other USA IP so you can watch Hulu and the other ones like ABC, NBC, Fox, etc.

The AOL thing works. Didn't try and buy a book, but I did watch a 17 second Family Guy clip on Hulu.

[MarkieMark]

For those who, similarly to me, were checking up on potential scammers, the news is that it looks as though scammers have picked up the technique too;

so beware when some red flags are raised, then you somehow discover the potential scammer's IP address that looks as though it's a US AOL address, even though the evidence suggests there would be no particularly good reason for that – aside from watching 'Leave it to Beaver', obviously

consider it an additional 'red flag' as the authorities call it

[abookreader]

DH was getting tired of searching out valid/good speed servers on his business trips and hidemyass.com had a fairly good discount going so we went ahead and bought a year. It isn't a free service but I can now easily change IPs to any region and DH can easily watch US tv when he's abroad.

[Coops]

I sometimes use proXPN as a free VPN - connects to a US server with the free version. Works fine.

http://www.proxpn.com/