Watch HBO Now in the UK for free*

TL;DR head to netflix-proxy on GitHub or subscribe to Unzoner VPN service to un-block:

Apple slashed the price of their Apple TVs to £59 in the UK to coincide? with the release of HBO Now on the same. However, unfortunately the app is only available on the US Apple TVs.

So what about all the people in the Old World, eager to purchase a subscription and watch quality HBO programming?

Such conversations go something like this:
customer: "HBO, please take my UK pounds!"
HBO: "Sorry, we can't, but we would *really* like to?"


So to help HBO take your UK £'s, here is how:

1. Create your own US mail drop address (e.g. www.shipito.com)[n1]
2. Create iTunes US Store account with your US postal address
3. Purchase iTunes US gift card (e.g. www.offgamers.com)
4. Load your gift card onto the iTunes account
5. Change your ATV to use your US account and switch stores (in settings)
6. Configure geo-bypass for HBO Now (e.g. github.com/ab77/netflix-proxy)[n2]
7. Enjoy!

Footnotes
[1] You now have an official (and legal) US postal address to use for correspondence.

[2] This is a Netflix-proxy-in-a-box solution I put together using open source software and Docker hosted on Digital Ocean. It will work just the same, as long as you add hbonow.com to the relevant config files along side netflix.com:

edit /opt/netflix-proxy/data/sniproxy.conf and add:

table {
    .*\.hbonow\.com *
    hbonow\.com *
}

edit /opt/netflix-proxy/data/zones.override and add:

zone "hbonow.com." {
    type master;
    file "/data/db.override";
};

restart Docker containers:

# docker restart bind sniproxy

Archer Season 4 in the UK: A legitimate case for piracy?

Archer Season 4 in the UK: A legitimate case for piracy?

After watching Archer seasons 1-3, my wife and I naturally moved on to season 4. After watching the first four episodes we realised that then next available episode in the sequence was episode 8. So the natural question is where are episodes 6 and 7?

A quick search reveals that neither Netflix UK, blinkbox nor iTunes in the UK currently have these episodes even though they've aired in the US in February according to the Wikipedia article.

Archer Season 4: missing episodes

If you are in the US however, there is no problem - all the episodes are available to download through iTunes store US:

Archer Season 4: full set in iTunes Store (US)

So, why is this content, long available in one region, missing from another and on top of that, aired out of order? A scheduling glitch or some kind of outstanding rights issue? I am going to put my consumer hat on now and stay that "I simply do not care" either way. I'd like to pay for and watch my episodes, in the correct sequence and in timely manner and if I can't, I will take my money elsewhere.

I propose that this is exactly the case where people who would otherwise pay for content, would turn to alternative sourcing methods. In this case, the entire season 4 in full HD can be downloaded in minutes, with your favourite BitTorrent client, using one of the many trackers set up for this purpose.

So, why wait?

-- ab1