Unblock websites you cannot access with a VPN on your Apple Mac

Sometimes you are locked out of websites for no good reason. Some are blocking all EU residents because they can't handle GDPR and public Wi-Fi is often over restrictive too. Here's a solution.

GDPR is supposed to make the web better, but despite having two years to prepare it seems that some websites are not prepared. Rather than impliment good privacy policies and all visitors to see or delete what information a site holds on them, some websites have given up on GDPR and simply block all European residents.

When you visit some websites from the EU, you might see a message like this:

New York Daily News website accessed from the EU

This is not the only site and there are others.

It affects not only EU residents but also people from the US and elsewhere who might be on holiday or a business trip and want to access websites back home, such as the New York Daily News shown above. Visit the site on your European travels and that's all you will see.

If you are reading this six months from now, the site may have been fixed, but right now on GDPR day (May 25th), it's blocked, and so are other sites.

If you travel with a MacBook you may experience various problems with using Wi-Fi at hotels, cafes, train stations and airports because some severely restrict which sites you can access. If you stop for a burger and coffee at McDonald's and want to use the Wi-Fi for example, you may find it very limited. My local establishment is almost useless because it won't let me access sites I need to access.

Get a VPN

A VPN solves internet access problems in several ways. One way is by letting you pretend you are in another country and it lets you connect to VPN servers in many locations around the world. Whichever server you choose, you appear to be wherever it is located.

If you connect to a VPN server in Canada you appear to be in Canada, and if you connect to a server in the US you appear to be a US resident.

If I connect to any server outside of the EU, I have no problems accessing the New York Daily News website and all the others that are blocked.

Similarly, if I use a VPN at McDonald's it unblocks access to the websites and services I need to use for work and research. It frees up the internet again and enables me to get stuff done online. The VPN gets around over-protective web restrictions at public Wi-Fi hotspots.

Free VPNs

A VPN is becoming increasingly useful these days and there is intense competition among providers. Which one should you choose? A free VPNs?

Opera: The Opera web browser is based on Chrome but it has its own unique features. It has a VPN built in, but the NY Daily News could still tell I was in the EU and blocked me, despite choosing a US server location. It left me wondering how good the VPN was.

If you want to try it, download Opera and install it. Run it and go to Preferences > Privacy & security and then half way down is VPN.

PureVPN Free VPN Proxy: If you use Chrome on your Mac, you might want to try PureVPN Free VPN Proxy, which is available as an extension in the Chrome Web Store. It only works in Chrome, so if you switch to Safari for example, you will not be protected.

PureVPN Chrome Extension works well and there is a good range of countries to select from. By connecting to United States I was able to view the New York Daily News and other blocked websites. You have to create a PureVPN account, but it is free.

Paid VPN services

Why pay for a VPN service when you can get them for free? There are several reasons:

• Paid VPNs don't have the limitations that are often in free ones
• Paid VPNs usually provide faster internet access
• Paid VPNs have a more choice of servers to connect to
• Paid VPNs provide more comprehensive privacy and protection
• Paid VPNs often enable multiple devices to connect

Pay for a VPN and you get a lot more than in a freebie and they are usually worth it for the speed, choice of servers, multiple devices (add your phone) and so on. There are dozens of VPN companies and once you start searching for them you will find no end of deals. It can be confusing knowing which one to go for, so what do I use?

I use NordVPN and I bought a cheap deal when it was on offer. It works fine on my Mac, PC and phone, and it unlocks those blocked websites.

Use my affiliate link to get NordVPN if you want a great VPN service. Currently it works out at $2.75 a month or $99 for 3 years, which is very cheap.

Quick guide to using NordVPN on the Mac

When NordVPN is started, it shows a map of the world. There is a pin in every country that has a VN server. Why are there so many pins in Europe? Simply because there are lots of little countries. A pin is a country and a country can have more than VPN 100 servers.

Click a pin on the map and you are connected to a VPN server in that country. It is as simple as that. In the screenshot above I clicked the pin in Canada.

An alternative way to connect to a VPN server is to click the NordVPN icon in the menu bar and select Connect to and then a country.

Open the menu bar at the side and scroll down to the bottom of the items. There is a Server List option. Click it.

A very long list of VPN servers is displayed and they can be filtered by VPN server type. For example, you might simple want a standar VPN server.

At the right side of the app window is a search box and you can type the name of the country you want to connect to. All the servers in that country are then listed and clicking one connects to it.

The percentage figure is the server load, so you can see which are becoming busy. It is best to choose one with a low server load. The heart at the right enables you to make a server a favourite, which makes it easier to find and connect to.

These days there seem to be ever more reasons for needing a VPN service and GDPR just added to the list.