Want to Get Around NBC's Olympic Internet Streaming Blockade?


If you're like me or many people in this country, having a cable subscription just doesn't make sense anymore - or so we thought. Whereas in past years the Olympics was aired in its entirety on whatever network paid to broadcast them (usually NBC), this year they've adopted a broadcast strategy that's absolutely insane: a time delay (even mid-day on weekends) with the expectation that legitimate news sites won't report on the results of Olympic events as they occur. At first, I didn't think it would be a problem, but when NBC revealed it wouldn't be airing the most important events (i.e. the ones where medals are won) on network television, suddenly countless non-cable-subscribers were left without any opportunity to watch the Olympic games in a timely fashion without having the results spoiled by news services (or the internet in general).

Luckily, the people of Reddit have a great solution that will let you watch all the events live as they happen via the BBC's website.

The basic solution, and one that seems to be working very well for the Reddit community, is free - so suck on that NBC. To make it work, you just need to head on over to FoxyProxy and download their proxy add-on for either Google Chrome, Firefox, or Internet Explorer.

Once you've got it and have installed it in your browser, use the following guide to set it up. What'll it do, you ask? Once configured properly, you can visit sites like BBC.co.uk and it will see your computer as if you're outside of the US (where NBC's blockade on online streaming through anyone but them doesn't exist) and thus you can watch all the events of the Olympics for free. For most people this will work, but if it doesn't, the same site has a UK VPN subscription service which you can buy just for a month (for $12 - as opposed to a yearly cable contract) that works the same way, but in a more total fashion - meaning it'll get around any issue you might be having with just the simple browser add-on (which, again, works for most people).

Set up the proxy by following these directions (click on images to make them larger - images are in order of steps):

Click image to open!
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If you have an alternative fix, questions, or anything else, sound off below.

As requested by a few commenters below, here are step by step instructions for those who either found the unpaid proxy to be too slow or just couldn't get it to work, and so wanted to try the $12 paid proxy (which is must faster, and preferable for streaming anyways - and dirt cheap and immediate considering the alternative).

If you're hitting the wall with non-paid proxies, then I'd recommend GetFoxyProxy.org's paid version (it's $12 - which is pretty great, and I can confirm 100% that it works as I'm watching Fencing right now).

Go here: 
https://getfoxyproxy.org/proxy... and the UK Proxy option is the default. Select "1 Month", select the renewal option (in the dropdown menu below) to "Expire at the end of the term", your e-mail below that, and then how you want to pay (I recommend PayPal for simplicity and security sake). Once you've completed your order, you'll receive an e-mail from GetFoxyProxy, with your proxy IP address, your username, and your password. At which point follow the next steps to set it up and use BBC's UK side to watch the Olympics:

(These instructions were written using the browser Google Chrome - but have very similar corresponding menu titles if you're using any other browser)

1) Click on the wrench button in the upper righthand corner of Chrome
2) Click "Settings" and then scroll all the way to the bottom and click "Show Advanced Settings"
3) Under Network, click "Change Proxy Settings"
4) Under "Connections" tab (should be the default tab), click "Add VPN" on the righthand side
5) For "Internet Address" paste in the IP Address in the e-mail you received and then click "Next"
6) For Username enter the username they sent you in the e-mail
7) For Password enter the password
8) Then press "Connect" or "Ok" or "Next" or whatever the affirmative button at the bottom is
9) The computer should then go through a process where it establishes the connection, tests password, etc.
10) Then once that's complete, go to google.co.uk and a dialogue box should pop up asking for your username and password. Type these in again, same as before and press enter.
11) You should be set, so navigate over to bbc.co.uk (not bbc.com) and you're good to go

Enjoy the Olympics!

***Editor's Note: We are not in anyway affiliated with FoxyProxy, we simply used the service to satisfy our own Olympic craving and wanted to share our own joy.***

Lex Walker • Editor



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