Most of us know how awesome Pandora Internet Radio is, from the times when it was accessible from India and other countries outside the United States. Later owing to legal restrictions streaming websites like Pandora, OpenHulu and CBS.com stopped providing access to countries outside USA. If only we still had access to it? Today we are going to share guide for newbie to access Pandora radio outside US.
Firstly, let me talk about the current scenario. The Pandora radio uses an I.P. based block to prevent users outside US. So, if you try to access Pandora.com right now (from any other country) you’ll be un-welcomed by the following page.
The first thing that now comes to your mind is the use of a proxy. Well, the web based proxies that you might have used earlier won’t work with streaming audio or video. The best solution in a similar scenario is the use of VPNs. Those of you who have access to paid Virtual Private Networks(VPNs) are well off, but for the majority of other people like me who don’t, here’s a free and seamless solution.
Hotspot Shield
HotSpot Shield is a free VPN service offered for Windows and Mac OS X. It assigns your computer a new IP and once connected you can use the web services in any browser installed on your computer, as if you were connected through a US based ISP.
Head over to the website and download Hotspot shield on your computer. The installation process is very easy and self intuitive. The free service will show you some ads on the top of the page, but we can do with that, right? Moreover, the ads once displayed can be turned off on that page.
Ads Displayed at the Top
Another tip here, once you have access to the desired webpage you can disconnect HotSpot Shield. Some of us might be sceptic about the security of our personal chats and mails flowing while the VPN is on. The website will continue to stream for that session, even if you disconnected HotSpot Shield right after the page loaded.
Voila, now I can access pandora radio from India and following this tip, you can access too from your coountry. Here’s a screenshot of Pandora running in India. I was also able to stream video from CBS.com
Go ahead and try accessing Pandora radio yourselves, and also using HotSpot Shield to access any other site outside U.S.A. Tell us about your experience, including those that were unsuccessful, in the comments section. We might be able to lend a helping hand.
Cool Heck, I love Pandora, (.. and now i love you too
)
thanks Shanker. enjoy
Pandora is an awesome source of Radio. I prefer the other awesome sources instead of trying to cheat their system with the amazing software Hotspot shield.
Why struggle so much when you know that Internet is full of free sources.
where else do you get an endless playlist of your favorite genre with such quality content?
Used to work, not anymore. Using hotspot shield now gives me the “you are using a proxy outside of the us.” message. clearing cache in firefox worked for a while, not anymore.
Awesome dude, it works for streaming radio to Asia. Thanks!
Thanks a lot! Just now I told my bro who lives in an SE Asia country how awesome Pandora is. I directed him to the site, and learned later that it doesn’t work from where he lives. I came across your post here and will definitely pass it to him. Thanks again. : )
Awesome man! Very neat!
Your post is better than lifehacker’s post on the same thing. they gave crappy solutions which didn’t work.
This is a dream come true. Thanks a ton
Does any one knows if here is any VPN client for Google TV running Honeycomb??
I want to use Pandara on my Google TV but not able to do because I am in India.
Hi! Do you know how to access Pandora on an iPad and outside US? Thank you so much!
I installed Hotspot Shield and got Pandora 2 times. Since then I have only gotten the message from Pandora that “it’s taking longer than usual to play the next song….” and that’s that. No music. My internet connection is fine-I’m in Mexico and the second and third time I tried to connect w/ Pandora it worked beautifully but now I get nothing and I know HSS is connected. Frustrated-any ideas? Thank you.
I am using Faceplex extension for Chrome (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jpogcjlndnndophlaeelmckimcpphpkj). I wouldn’t say that it works stable too much (it uses anonymous proxies and can open Pandora web-site not just on the first try), but if you succeed to open Pandora it seems to work fine (in Canada at least).
May 3 2013 at 11-24-53 AM
Thank you Dancer, I did go to Faceplex using Google Chrome, and it worked like a charm, I am listening to it as I write this. All I did is just close Chrome and restart again, and all is perfect.
Thank you Dancer once more.
Om
Works like a breeze…using HotSpot Shield I did get an initial error on Pandora but keeping the web page open..music continues on second try onwards
CBS.com gives errors sometimes and takes slightly longer to load…although upon disconnecting HotSPot Shield I got an error ‘The video you have requested is unavailable or may have expired’
Since I just installed it I may have to use it a while longer to give a better review
After upgrading to HotSpot Sheild 2.74 I can no longer connect to Pandora outside the US. Maybe Pandora got smart or HotSpot messed up.
not working mate.. pandora keeps on refreshing, every 5 seconds.
and i tried hulu and they blew my cover
not working at all !!! thanks, can we at least get some good radios like pandora that work outside the annoying US
Can someone tell me step by step how to get pandora to work outside the USA on my iPad..thank you
After trying all sorts of things, this one worked like a charm.
Thanks a lot.
Happy Pandora!
Hey, thanks for the tips. But I am having trouble using the service you mentioned. Will a VPN service work for this? I’m thinking of using the HideMyNet VPN service but I would like a review from someone who’s tried their product. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Last year I was able to use Pandora, not particularly stable, in Cairo using the HotSpot Shield. This year, in Istanbul, I am getting the same results as many commenters, where the Pandora page cycles back and forth between the normal site and the restricted access page. HotSpot reports that my address has indeed been spoofed and looks like I’m in California. One more example of what a poor partner music makes with money. — Mark
(“The Music Business is a shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where pimps and thieves run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” — Hunter S. Thompson)
Hey guys, I am trying to connect to Pandora from India but the page keeps reloading. Not able to view Hulu videos as well. Any tips?
Now that I have downloaded hot spot shield how doing access Pandora. Thanks