I wrote this up for another forum as well as some of my homies, but I figure you guys might be interested as well. It's easy and doesn't require any fancy proxies or complicated s***. I taught my mom how to do it. It's completely (mostly) legal.



Now that football season is nearly upon is (yay), it is time for me to find ways to watch the games without paying $150/mo for cable (f*** comcast).

Here's what I did last year, and plan to do this year.


1. Sign up for Hulu Live TV ($39.99/mo).
This allows me to live stream and "DVR to the cloud" a number of channels, including most of the channels the NFL games will be on (except Thursday games on NFL network, but IDGAF about TNF). It's only $40, and I don't have any contracts so I can cancel when the season is over. The quality is pretty good and I can pause/reverse/forward like a normal DVR.

But there's a problem. Hulu can only show the channels local to my geographical area. But the team I want to watch (SF 49ers) doesn't include my area as "in market" so I can't watch most of the games. Even though we've been "in market" since 1995, when the Rams moved back to LA last season we're all suddenly supposed to be Rams fans 'round here.


2. But there's a solution. In Chrome, go to settings. Go to advanced > content settings > location. Make sure "ask before accessing" is ON, then delete any info for Hulu. Now Hulu doesn't know where you are, and has to ask before it can find out. Close chrome.

3. Now, in a new Chrome window, right click anywhere and select "Inspect." At the bottom left, hit the three dots and go to "sensors." Set the geolocation as whatever area is in market for what you want to see. In my case, I want to watch 49ers games, so I select "San Francisco" as my geolocation. Then, bring up Hulu and your channels will be the local channels for the area you selected in the console.

4. Find the channel you want, then watch it/record it/whatever. Hook up your computer to your TV and watch it from the couch. I use a laptop and HDMI to connect to the TV and use a wireless mouse to control everything. It's easy. Figure it out.

Huh. I always use a VPN when I want to appear in other places, didn't know you could do these settings for Chrome specific applications. Thanks for sharing.

That's cool. I've been using amazon prime video and hulu "no commercials" plan for so long that I can't go back to watching "live tv" -- I just can't stand the commercials. We tried sling for a month and then cancelled because of the commercials. I would pay for netflix as well if they would stop the "auto preview" or whatever they call it where they constantly start playing shows when you're just navigating through, trying to find something to watch. I can't believe anyone can stand that, it's so infuriating. (I was a super early adopter of netflix dvd-by-mail and loved it, and loved the streaming plans when they first came out, and had them for years, but at some point they just decided to flood the service with crappy movies and then make the service user-hostile; I'm just not interested anymore, despite the fact that I know there are some good shows on there.)

My son was into football (seahawks) for a couple of years so we were subscribed to "basic" cable (which was $25 a month plus $10 month box rental fee + $15 month "broadcast fee" whatever that was -- so they advertise $25/month but charge $50/month + tax and even more fees) and were able to watch all the games you mentioned (with the same exceptions, the ones they had on "nfl network"). Good for me that my cable company doesn't require any contracts so we just signed up during football season and then cancelled immediately after (oh yeah there's a hookup and cancellation fee as well... argh). I'm glad he's not into it anymore.

****ing warez??

I don't mind commercials so long as they're brief (under two minutes) and infrequent. I like that Hulu has a timer so I know how much longer the commercials are, so I have time to go pee or get a refill or whatever.

The netflix auto-play thing is terrible. It gives you about three seconds to move on or it starts to play. If you open the movie to read the summary but don't press play it auto-plays anyway. I have about ten things in my "continue watching" list because it started playing while I was reading the summary and looking at the cast or looking up reviews or whatever and got thirty seconds into the movie before switching away. It's extremely annoying.

Agreed. I noticed the other day on my PC that I could press the mute icon, and then no others seemed to autoplay sound... the 'teaser loop' video thing starts, but no audio. Hopefully that sets it as an account-wide preference? For other devices? Haven't checked yet.

Hulu doesn't work from Finland (and even if I use a VPN for the free content I am still locked out of the premium stuff due to not being able to pay for it without actually being in the US with a US address and billing details) so I am left without the ability to appreciate this wonderful information that you have shared with our online community.

I find it funny that I pay more for all the various streaming services I use than I probably did for cable but I don't care, if things get tight I can always suspend some of them. We use playstation vue for live TV if we ever want to watch it or to "DVR" shows like the Walking Dead that don't stream "free" until much later. It takes just a few seconds to skip the commercials so that's not a problem. I don't even notice the Netflix autoplay thing anymore. I'm usually pretty deliberate about going to Netflix though so I don't do too much browsing. I pay extra for 4K but probably shouldn't. There probably is little to no discernible difference and I really don't use Netflix too much anyway. I added HBO to Hulu for some promotion that was $5/mo for six months. Really a premium addon to streaming service you already have probably yields better movies than Netflix but Netflix has some cool exclusive movies and shows. More than Netflix autoplay I hate how Hulu likes to play its, I guess it's a jingle every time you launch the app.

Eh, that was dumb. Also is that a PC thing where the "auto preview" just shows up in little windows? On Roku and apple TV if you hover over a show for more than 3 seconds it starts playing full screen. Although what is shown above would still be annoying, it'd be 20x less annoying that what I experience.

NO YOUR DUMB! I really don't know what Netflix does anymore to be honest. I usually use the app on the Samsung TV and I don't think any autoplay happens until you actually select a show, then it starts a few seconds later. I think. Last time I checked to verify your complaint, like two years ago maybe, it was as you said on Fire TV and Roku although I have some older Rokus that never got the latest updates so they don't do it.

Okay, so the browser Netflix is pretty annoying. If you mouse over a show it enlarges and pops up a description, then starts rolling a trailer and the description fades away. It has volume too.

I'm still a fan of physical media! Although I do have Netflix, all I use it for is watching episodes of the 1966 series of Star Trek while eating Fast Food in my car. So I only use it like 2-3 times a month. I should really just cancel and use my digital version from buying the series on Blu-ray.

Has anyone watched much of the Netflix originals? I think, just on principle, you have to assume everything is **** until you see it yourself. Many people talk about, this show, and that show, but in my experience, ive never agreed with most people when it comes to media. The only things that I've seen and like are two animated shows: The Castlevania Series, and the Godzilla movies. The former, because I love those games (even the N64 one) and its a halfway decent series. The latter, because I'm a HUGE Godzilla fan (Toho series in particular). The 60's ones are my favorite. Something about 60' Toyko really does it for me. When I watched "Toyko Drifter" I was in awe. So many cool lights, such cool cloths, such groovy/jazzy music. Damn that was a cool decade.

I was recently reading about the Netflix original, Andy & Jim, which is supposed to be about how Jim Carey basically tried to literally become Andy Kaufman while working on the set of Man on the Moon (much to the chagrin of some of the other people on the set).

I saw the doc on there a while ago. Never watched it. I like the actual movie tho. Andy Kaufman was an interesting dude to say the least. Idk how much I want to hear about how great/dedicated Jim Carey is.

I read a bit of an article where they interviewed Kaufman's brother and sister to see how they felt about both productions. They definitely said that the documentary was more about Jim than Andy, but strangely enough, liked it better than the actual movie, since they had a different idea about their brother than the public apparently did.

I like many of the Netflix Originals I've seen but I do not like the Godzilla animes. Just happened across the second one the other day. I thought it was stupid, personally, and these differences in opinion explain a lot. Like when somebody uses Rogue One to compare with another Disney Star Wars movie as if Rogue One is the low bar. I think Rogue One is clearly the high bar Disney Era Star Wars film.

Anyway, we've got one more Lost in Space to do. Maybe finish that one up tonight.