Will 'installing' via Virtual PC (or similar) balls up my PC? Virtual Private Network

Nine_Lives

Basically there's a US based radio station which i used to be able to stream via TuneIn Radio for the iPhone. At some point earlier this year anyone outside the US was unable to stream it.

There is a way around this - Virtual Private Networks. Now i don't understand these fully. On the topic of not understanding - i don't fully understand how something like Virtual PC works either. I've used it, but don't fully 'get it'.

I installed HotSpot Shield. You can pay to remove the ads (this is a money saving site so no surprise in that i don't want to pay), but if you have the free version then it's littered with ads. Every webpage you load has ads. Not only this but:
1) i felt it slowed the connection down
2) I couldn't find a way of telling the PC i wasn't from America - such as when i needed to access my iTunes account. There was no obvious toggling between US/UK
3) If i disconnected HotSpot Shield i could no longer access the internet. It had messed with my settings somehow.
4) I read of stories were people tried uninstalling this & even this didn't get their net connection back.


So naturally i want to avoid all of this, but still want access to the radio station.

My idea was to install WinXP (or Win7) in Virtual PC 2007 (or another Virtual PC type program if there's a better one out there). Install HotSpot Shield in this virtual install & then stream the station through that.

My question is would this still balls up my PC & my internet connection on my 'real' PC or would the issue only exist on the 'virtual pc'? If you're not sure either way then please say so.

Thanks.

jaydeeuk1

Sounds an almight faff installing a virtual PC client for this.
Easiest way (with a small cost) is via a proxy. I'm assuming its a browser based player, so if you just use IE for radio, just edit the proxy settings tools-internet options-connections and LAN settings. This will only affect IE and not chome etc.

There are some free proxies out there, but may not give the required bandwidth.

Edit- plugins also available for Chrome/Firefox too, not tried them, may or may not work, but apparently ok with youtube.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stealthy/ieaebnkibonmpbhdaanjkmedikadnoje

S0litaire

quick and easy way to do it!

1) visit https://www.privatetunnel.com/

2) sign up for a free account (you'll get 100Mb to start with)

3) install the OpenVPN software to your Desktop (Windows Mac & Android versions).

4) add your login dertails

5) close anything using the net (browsers, iplayer, itunes)

6) Start surfing...

If it works then 50gb only costs $12 and that will keep your radio app happy for a while...



**edit**
to be honest I've never bought the 50Gb bandwidth! I don't use it a lot so I just sign up again with a throw away email address and get another 100Mb to play with when ever i need it ^_^

Nine_Lives

Regarding proxies - they don't work. That's what i've read anyway. I tried one proxy approach & it didn't work which seemed to confirm what i read -that they don't work for the website.

Feel free to try it yourself. Here's the direct link: http://www.hot97.com/StreamHot/

So on the topic of proxies - privatetunnel & spotflux aren't anything to do with proxies are they?

When i had HotSpot Shield running at the weekend i was racking up the 100s of MB quite easily & that was just on one listening. I don't know whether it was factoring in my entire internet session or what. It'd be handy to switch between countries as/when i need though.


After just doing a fresh format & spending the majority of the weekend doing it (read other thread in forum for that episode!) i'm weary of messing up my Windows install & possibly getting a stack of spyware.


& out of curiosity .... would the Virtual PC route work as i put it? Or not?

prowla

I run multiple VMs on my Windows 7 machine, some running different VPNs. I use VMware Player.

Nine_Lives

It seems that whoever commented on Spotflux has had their post deleted.

I installed Spotflux & it didn't work for me. In fact once Spotflux was installed, my internet connection didn't work full stop, nevermind the website above.

Nine_Lives

Anyone with knowhow on this? Nothing is working thus far.

Hopefully the member who had their post deleted can come back as i remember they said they got it working no problem.

S0litaire

If it was deleted then it was probably a "spam advert" or something else that went against the site's rules.

Not surprised it's caused more problems that it was intended to solve!
Best un-install it and run a anti-virus & malware scan (just in case!)

Nine_Lives

I formatted the hard drive in the end (2 week ago).

My question is if i run the same program in a Virtual Machine - will it have a detrimental affect on my computer (as in the real PC, not the virtual machine) or will it only affect the virtual machine? As HotSpot Shield actually works.