Guide: How to Enable Hulu on PS3 With a Workaround

203w ago - A few days after blocking PlayStation 3 users, Hulu has yet to respond to questions concerning the change which has only helped to fuel rumors it is related to the Microsoft ad campaign currently featured on the site.

However, a guide is now available courtesy of yPass.net (linked above) that details how to workaround the method being used to block PS3 users, namely checking the User-Agent string in the HTTP request.

The workaround? To make your PS3 appear as a PC running a Firefox (or whatever you prefer) browser to any Web site that asks, as follows:

1. Install squid ("sudo apt-get install squid" for ubuntu users.... for Windows users, google for: squid windows)

2. Edit squid's default config (/etc/squid/squid.conf on ubuntu) with these changes (or download my configuration: squid-hulu.conf):

Search for "acl localnet src" and set it to your internal network. You can remove the other localnet definitions if you're not using them as shown here:

#acl localnet src 10.0.0.0/8
#acl localnet src 172.16.0.0/12
acl localnet src 192.168.0.0/16

Search for "http_access allow localhost" and add "http_access allow localnet" as such:

http_access allow localnet
http_access allow localhost

Add the following two lines pretty much anywhere in the file (the end of the file works just fine):

header_access User-Agent deny all
header_replace User-Agent Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.11) Gecko/2009060215 Firefox/3.0.11 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

3. Start squid (sudo /etc/init.d/squid start)

4. Go to PS3 Internet settings. Do manual configure. Go through the settings as normal (the defaults should be fine) until you get to proxy server. Set it to be your PC's IP address port 3128.

Your PS3 is now a Windows machine running Firefox (as far as Hulu is concerned) and you can use Hulu again. What a dumb method of restricting access. You can get a bit fancier with the acl's to make it so ONLY Hulu URLs get the User-Agent replaced. It's not that hard, but until I have a problem, I don't see any point in bothering.