How to get BBC iPlayer, ITV Player etc in Spain (and elsewhere) and Speed Up Your Internet!

This has to be one of the most frequent questions I get asked and (until now) I’ve said “You Can’t”. Well, it turns out that I’m wrong ... and it gets worse! It turns out that I’ve been wrong for years! I have the solution!

First the problem: because of licensing restrictions the BBC, Channel 4 etc are not allowed to broadcast outside of the UK. They therefore have to monitor users of iPlayer etc to see where they are accessing the service from. They do this by looking at your IP address (this is given to you by your Spanish Internet provided).

There are a number of people offering access to these sites for either a one-off fee of several hundred Euros or a monthly fee. What they do is set up a ‘proxy’ account for you which means that all the information you send or receive is redirected via another computer in the UK. You can do this yourself and you can even find free proxy servers.

My concern is: what are they doing with that information? This includes everything you send or receive (bank details as well as the latest Eastenders). You can always turn the proxy off when you’ve finished but will you remember? And, if even if you turn it off, what has happened whilst you were connected? What Malware has been downloaded for instance? Even if they are legitimate services you will run into frustrating reliability problems.

The Solution

The fix I have for this is a product called OnSpeed. I’ve used this on and off for years, even in the UK! It’s primary function is to speed up your Internet access (it makes a difference even on a 1mb broadband/ADSL link). It costs less than 30 Euros a year and has a money back guarantee. SAFE, LEGAL & CHEAP!

It does this by reducing the amount of information downloaded by compressing it and then decompresses it on your PC. Believe it or not, it is faster to compress, send and decompress than it is to just send. To do this it has to use its own high-speed servers in the UK to request and receive the data. This is how you are able to get iPlayer etc!! OnSpeed is asking for the programs from within the UK and forwarding them to you!

It also displays pages intelligently – for instance, the quality of pictures improves as the page loads so that you see all the text and a low resolution pictures immediately which means you can probably see all you need to see and be on another page in less time than it previously took just to download the page.

If you give it a try and you don’t see a significant improvement you can always cancel within the 14 days. You will not see an increase in speed of downloaded files because these are already compressed. Also, for security reasons, any secure websites are NOT routed via OnSpeed's servers for your protection.

Unlike the other options, this is safe, secure and reliable! And LEGAL!! Oh, and you get faster Internet!!

If installing outside the UK be sure to select UK as your Country to install the English Version.

Known Issues:

With so many versions of Operating Systems (Vista, Windows 7, Mac etc) and Browsers (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome etc.) there e bound to be some issues with certain combinations. I will recored known issues here (please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you have an issue - please include your Operating System and Browser dertails).

OnSpeed recommends that changes are required to Old Firefox, Netscape and Opera Browsers

OnSpeed works on any browser based on Internet Explorer but older versions of Firefox, Netscape and Opera need manual configuration. As it happens, the current version (3) of Firefox needs manual configuration but version 4 (coming soon) will be OK. I recommend simply accessing iPlayer etc via Google Chrome or Internet Explorer - no problem!

iPlayer not working in Firefox 3.n with Windows 7.

This is my system. The easy workaround was to use Internet Explorer or Google Chrome! The more complicated fix was to manually configure the settings for Firefox (see above). This worked but I preferred not to make changes.

Problems with ITV and Channel 5

As of 3rd April 2010 there seems to be a problem with ITV and Channel 5. These were working in March. I have tried these with IE, FF and Chrome and they no longer work. This is running the latest versions of the browsers and on Windows7 64bit. Please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you can confirm the problem or, better still, you have a combination that works.

I think we should be grateful that it is not BBC or Channel 4 (these have the weakest signals and BBC2,3 and 4 are particular problems).

FAQ & Tips