Free TV, a completely anonymous Web presence, and the ability to duck Web "pharmers" - all this, and more, can be yours by making a little bitty change in your Internet settings; and, if you download some cheap software, you don't even have to make the changes yourself!
It all started when I read about the free TV programs being offered by the major U.S. networks. Have you heard about this? While we're slogging through old reruns of shows that have been canceled long ago (I won't mention any names, but you know which ones I'm talking about), ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, along with PBS (for the high-cultured among us) offer many of their new season hits for free viewing on Web sites. It turns out that many of the TV shows available from supposedly "pirate" services like Bittorrent are really 100% kosher - just load the shows up in your browser anytime, and watch! It sort of breaks the aura of dangerous romance associated with "illegal" downloading, but on the other hand, we all have enough other shady activities we are going to be called on when we get "upstairs," right?
However, there is one catch: If you try to connect to any of the sites (listed below) using a standard Web connection provided by Bezeq or HOT, your browser, instead of displaying the latest episode of Lost, Prison Break, or Ugly Betty (the very funny U.S. version of the world-renowned telenova; the local version was called Ugly Esti), will inform you that the free viewing is for U.S. located computers only.
There is a way around being "Israeli" as far as the TV sites (or any other site) are concerned, however - all you have to do is make the site you're trying to connect believe that you're located in the U.S. And technically, it's not a difficult thing to do - in fact, the major Web browsers allow you to easily pretend to be someone you aren't, with the insertion of a manual proxy configuration.
For everyday Web surfing, the Proxz CoDeen proxies are just fine - if you're just surfing to news sites or playing on-line games, for example, you won't have any problems. I was able to get the free proxy I set up to play shows on the CBS site (that had previously refused to load because of my computer's location), but the other sites still insisted that I was in America. Very strange, I thought, because IPChicken listed by IP address as being in the U.S. Either the CoDeen servers were leaking information about me, or the TV sites have the ones I tried listed as proxy servers, and refuse to honor requests from them. Note that Proxz lists hundreds of servers in the U.S. - I only tried three, so it was by no means a thorough test of the CoDeen servers.
It was time for the big guns - a serious, local anonymizer that would make all the necessary changes necessary to totally mask my on-line identity. As you would expect, you can't get that kind of service for free; but while $2.50 a month isn't free, it's a lot cheaper than a cable subscription, or even a night out at the movies for one (it actually comes out to a quarter of a movie!).