Watching IPlayer outside the UK

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Tor is an anonymising network which allows people living in restrictive regimes to access the internet with relative impunity. If you know what you are doing you can use it to give yourself a UK IP address and watch BBC telly via IPlayer. This article tells you how to achieve same.

Why use Tor over other solutions? – Because it’s free, and because it won’t contain ads or malware, being an Open Source program.

What does this do? – It uses Tor’s Browser Bundle to connect the included web browser through UK only Tor exit nodes, which fools BBC IPlayer into thinking you are in the UK. The actual streaming still goes direct to your real IP address through Flash Player, so don’t use this if you want to remain hidden/anonymous, as it will definitely give you away!

My particular circumstances are that I am an English expat living in Ireland, but even though I can watch BBC channels through Sky or Freesat, the BBC block Irish IP addresses from IPlayer.

The steps are:-

  1. Download and extract Tor’s browser bundle.
  2. Manually copy the flash plugin into the Tor browser plugin directory.
  3. Enable plugins in Vidalia.
  4. Edit Tor’s config to only include UK exit nodes (preferably those with good bandwidth)
Tor’s browser bundle can be found here, be sure to choose the correct version for your operating system i.e. if you are using Windows download the Windows browser bundle.
Once you have downloaded the file go into the folder you downloaded it into and double click the file to extract it. You will see a dialog like so:-
Click extract and wait. Assuming you have Firefox you will probably already have the correct version of Flash installed, if not use Google installing Firefox and Flash is trivial and beyond the scope of this article. Now manually copy the Flash plugin into the plugin directory of the Tor browser bundle. There are 2 files needed “flashplayer.xpt” and “NPSWF32.dll” you will find these in “C:\windows\system32\macromed\flash”:-Copy and paste them into “Tor Browser\FirefoxPortable\App\Firefox\plugins” in the directory you downloaded the bundle into:-Then start the Tor browser for the first time:-
And open up preferences:-And deselect “disable plugins during Tor usage”:-Exit from Tor browser. All that remains now is to edit the Tor config to enable only UK exit nodes, the file is in “Tor Browser\Data\Tor\torrc”. Double-click on it and choose to open with “Notepad”, then click “ok”:-Paste the following 
 ExitNodes {GB}
StrictExitNodes 1

at the start of the file:- Exit saving changes and start Tor browser again, test IPlayer, enjoy!:-Please note it doesn’t seem to work with live broadcasts. The procedure for Ubuntu/Linux is similar except you will need to copy the flash player plugin from “/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer” the file being called “libflashplayer.so”. The Linux version also includes the noscript plugin which means you will have to click on the no script icon and allow each time you watch a program!

  • VT

    As you seem to be quite well-up on the subject, I thought I would ask you if you had found a solution to watching the new Sky Go Catch-up TV. Sky used to use Silverlight instead of Flash Player, which did not seem to work in Firefox. Now Sky has launched an all new Website for viewing TV for those who already have a Sky package and login. However, when outside the UK, and despite using a UK exit node in Tor, it still seems impossible to get it to replay any programs from any of the Sky channels that are included in one’s package. Without using Tor, one gets the message that one is not in the correct geographic region. With Tor, this message no longer appears, however the video simply will not play. I’d be grateful to hear from anyone who has found a solution.

  • http://www.johnlewis.ie John Lewis

    Unfortunately I don’t have any experience with Sky’s player, but what I can tell you is that the “live streaming” from the BBC’s website wouldn’t work with this setup either, I suspect because the actual streamed data gets sent to your real ip address. I don’t have any further information on that at the moment but may look into it for you in the absence of another satisfactory solution.

  • Sarah Murray

    Thanks a million for the really useful info – you solved my TOR/Flash problem – iplayer working now!

  • John Peter Lewis

    It is possible to get Tor to proxy all traffic, but there are a couple of major problems using it for this purpose:-

    1. Tor is too slow to stream TV i.e. there isn’t enough bandwidth available.
    2. Ideally you would need to change operating system to do it anyway, which, I’m guessing would be neither desirable or achievable for you.

    There are many VPN services which will give you a UK ip, I expect most of them are dodgy, so I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole, but that’s me.

    Another alternative is to rent a dedicated server (or VPS) in the UK and setup your own VPN server. Would probably be comparable in cost to one of the VPN services but you would be the only one using it, pretty much guaranteeing a good service. Again I expect this is beyond your technical ability and I’m fairly sure you won’t pay me to set it up for you.

    All the best.

  • Hsmlion

    To access tor button go to Tools–>Add-ons–>extensions–>Tor Button and select Options–>Security Settings.

    You may also start with View–Options—Menu bar from Top left.

  • pachamama

    UK EXIT NODES AS OF NOW:

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  • Litha

    You don’t have to specify servers as exit nodes. You can also type “exitnodes {GB}” in the Torrc-file. Works just as well and you’ll never have to update your torrc-file when an exit node stops working.

  • John Peter Lewis

    Thanks for that Litha. I will give it a try and update the instructions accordingly.

  • Aha

    Thanks for the tip, however the iplayer could ‘see’ i had > version 11 flash running and denied me access to the player.
    Any ideas how to get around this?

  • John Peter Lewis

    I don’t quite understand that Aha. All I can tell you is I am using Flash version 11.1, and it works fine for me. Are you saying you have a version less than that e.g. 10?

    Perhaps you could post a screen shot to illustrate your dilemma?

  • Aha

    Hi John, thanks for the reply. I too have the lastest version of flash, version 11 +, I can cahnge all the parameters as you suggested but when I try to run the player it tells me I need to run a higher version of flash. BBC content needs flash version > 10 which I have.
    I may uninstall TOR and reinstall it which might then pick up the newer version of flash.
    Cheers from Roscommon

  • John Peter Lewis

    You will have to copy the Flash plugin file as detailed in the instructions, otherwise it won’t pick up the new version. I expect you had the version 10 plugin copied into the Tor browser and that is what is causing the problem.

    Cheers from The Sunny South East.

  • Aha

    Hi John, no joy I’m afraid…i reinstalled TOR, and made all the changes but to no avail.
    I’ll keep at it, and let you know if I have any success

  • John Peter Lewis

    What version of “NPSWF32.dll” do you have in “Tor BrowserFirefoxPortableAppFirefoxplugins”?

  • Aha

    Funny you should say that…I had noticed NPSWF32.dll was only version 10.0.12.36.
    The strange thing is when I downloaded Flash 11.1.102.55 this morning there were NO *.xpt or NPSWF32.dll files in the download directory. Had a search for them but didn’t find any.
    I seem to have flash file located in another place too…
    cdocs&settingsuserdesktopwindowssystem32macromedflash.
    do you know where adobe downloads flash to exactly?

  • John Peter Lewis

    Perhaps it has changed in version 11, but in version 10 it was stored in C:windowssystem32macromedflash as per the article, did you check there?

  • Aha

    John I won’t waste anymore of your time…the only thing I noticed was in your screen grap you have Flash*_plugin.exe whereas I have Flash*_activeX.exe with no dll or xpt files

  • John Peter Lewis

    It’s ok, the article doesn’t make it entirely clear. You need to install Firefox and the Firefox version of Flash. That will then give you the correct files in the correct locations. Go to mozilla.org and click on “Get Firefox”. Follow the prompts.

    You currently have the Internet Explorer version of Flash installed which won’t work with the Tor Browser. The Tor Browser is based on Firefox, hence the need for the Firefox version of Flash.

  • Aha

    Sound like a plan…cheers

  • Aha

    Hi John…it worked :)
    thanks for all you help
    if you’re up this way I’ll get them in

  • John Peter Lewis

    That’s very generous of you, Thanks for the offer. :)

  • Boon

    Lately this method is not working. When you activate the IPlayer it says the content does not seem to be working. Thus, you cannot view any program. Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

  • John Peter Lewis

    Yes, you haven’t followed the howto correctly. I just checked the setup again and it works fine for me. Go to whatsmyip.org in the Tor Browser and tell me what your ip address is.

  • Boon

    Hi John, every thing was working fine previously. I did not change the settings but the last two days I encountered this problem. When I launched Tor browser it says: Your IP address appears to be 146.185.23.179. However, when I followed your link to whatsmyip.com the IP is: 220.255.1.144. Appreciate your assistance. Thanks.

  • John Peter Lewis

    I did say “whatsmyip.org” but never mind. Can you post the contents of your “torrc” file?

  • Boon

    Hi John, I verified the IP address. It is 146.185.23.179. This is actually the IP address of TorLand1.

    The torrc file is as follows.

    Exitnodes obelix, TorLand5, TorLand2
    StrictExitNodes 1
    # If non-zero, try to write to disk less frequently than we would otherwise.
    AvoidDiskWrites 1
    # Store working data, state, keys, and caches here.
    DataDirectory .DataTor
    GeoIPFile .DataTorgeoip
    # Where to send logging messages. Format is minSeverity[-maxSeverity]
    # (stderr|stdout|syslog|file FILENAME).
    Log notice stdout
    # Bind to this address to listen to connections from SOCKS-speaking
    # applications.
    SocksListenAddress 127.0.0.1

    I only added the first 2 lines to the file.

    As I said everything was working fine before and I did not make any modification to the torrc file. Lately, when I watching BBC the message was simply:’ The content does not appear to be working. Try again later’. I could not access BBC ever since. Thanks.

  • John Peter Lewis

    First things first change “Exitnodes obelix, TorLand5, TorLand2″ to “ExitNodes {GB}”, that will ensure you always get a UK address.

    Secondly download the latest version of the Tor Browser and start again, It sounds as though the socks proxy settings in Tor Browser may have been messed up, would be as well to start afresh.

  • Boon

    Hi John, I have done all that. I have the latest version of Tor, and tried “ExitNodes {GB}” before but no luck. I even attempted running Tor from a USB thumb drive instead of the Desktop but ran into the same problem. On the subject of starting afresh any idea of uninstalling Tor? The measures mentioned in the Tor site is not useful as the Tor file is not even found in Windows program directory. Formatting the drive would be a little too drastic. Regards.

  • John Peter Lewis

    If you downloaded the “bundle” it will be in it’s own directory wherever you extracted it, and you can just delete the directory. Maybe I should take a look remotely, do you want to download and install the remote support software above and I will have a quick shuffty?

  • Boon

    Thanks John, I will try something on my end. Will contact you if I need further help.