How to Easily Bypass YouTube’s Regional Filter

“The uploader has not made this video available in your country.”

Some YouTube videos are restricted by location — BBC’s content is only available to UK residents, while US cable channels are only available online if you’re in the US, and so forth. Luckily, there are a few tricks to bypass this regional filter, and watch any YouTube videos you want to, regardless of your location.

Earlier, you could adjust the YouTube URL to bypass a regional filter. Since that no longer works, we’ve put together a list that makes it possible to watch those restricted videos. Some of these tricks will also work beyond YouTube, and are applicable to other geo-restricted sites like Hulu, as well as audio content on the likes of Pandora and Spotify.

ProxMate :
If you find yourself running into this problem on a regular basis, the best solution is a browser plugin that will run in the background and automatically unblock videos, with no effort on your part whatsoever. ProxMate works beyond just YouTube, and can be used to unblock restricted content on Hulu, Pandora, MTV and more.

You can also choose to switch off ProxMate when you don’t need it in case it slows down loading time on your videos – this is as simple as clicking the ProxMate button in your browser bar. ProxMate is available for download for Chrome from its website, or from the Firefox Add-Ons library. To install it on Chrome, you’ll have to download the extension, and then drag it onto the open Extensions page in your browser.


Unblock YouTube :

If you don’t find yourself running into this issue very often, there are websites that allow you to simply drop the YouTube URL into the website and you can watch them straight away.
The aptly named Unblock YouTube allows you to select the video quality, and player type. For the latter, you can choose between HTML5 or a Flash player, for those of you using older browsers.

Hotspot Shield :
If you want to watch YouTube videos on the go using your phone, Hotspot shield offers users a handy and easy way to do just that. The only trick is that you won’t be able to use the native YouTube app installed on your phone, but rather will have to watch YouTube videos in your browser of choice.

Hotspot Shield is available as a free download for Android and iPhone users. Once you’ve installed the app on your iPhone, it will prompt you to install a profile on your phone. This will allow you to later switch the VPN on and off without having to launch the app at all. On your iPhone, all you have to do is go into the settings, and in the first set of options, switch your VPN on. On your Android phone, you can activate it from the app, rather than your phone’s settings.

You can use Hotspot Shield for seven days for free, after which you can sign up for the elite subscription for $4.99 per month, or $29.99 per year, or you can earn free time on Hotspot Shield by inviting other users to sign up, through the Hotspot Elite website.

Our Verdict :
Each of these services provides a different way to access blocked YouTube content, but hands down the one service that offers the best options is ProxMate. It offers users a native YouTube experience, complete with all of the standard features that you expect to find when watching an online video.