Web unblocker Proxmate reveals subscription costs
Proxmate, the web unblocking service that enables you to access geo-restricted content on the Internet, revealed the service's subscription costs on the newly launched website.
The service, which was provided for free previously as a browser add-on for Firefox and Chrome based web browsers, announced in October that it would discontinue the free offer and turn into a subscription service instead.
The subscription costs was not revealed back then, only that existing users could take advantage of a limited offer to subscribe to the service for $0.99 per month.
Proxmate
It may come as a surprise to users who signed up back then that the new subscription costs match the limited offer for the time being.
Users who want to sign up for a Proxmate account can pay $0.99 per month or $9.95 per year for that. A fourteen-day trial is available for new and existing users as well that requires only an email address (and verification), but no other data.
The pricing page reveals that these may increase after the promotional period however. Monthly subscriptions are available for $1.95 then and yearly subscriptions paid in advance for $17.95.
Proxmate supports more than 200 channels at the time of writing. These include popular streaming services such as Netflix, BBC iPlayer, CBS, Comedy Central, Spotify, Pandora, or Hulu to name a few. In addition to streaming services, it supports other web-based services that make use of geographic restrictions such as the Google Store.
The selection of channels is quite good, and there is an option to request new channels to be added to the service in case they are not supported yet.
Proxmate promises unlimited data transfer, no logging of browser activity, no ads, and lightning fast speeds.
So how competitive is Proxmate's offer?
While there are free services available that offer similar functionality, it is often the case that they are monetized in ways that are privacy invasive or restricted. Hola, a free for non-commercial use service for instance turns PCs into exit nodes and makes the bandwidth available to third-parties. It did inject ads as well on websites that extension users visited in the past.
Free TunnelBear accounts, to use another example, are limited to a monthly transfer rate of 500 Megabyte.
If you compare it to other paid geo-unblocking services, it stacks up quite well even if you consider that pricing will increase after a while. TunnelBear for instance is available for $59.98 per year and Media Hint $39.50 per year.
Web unblockers compete with VPN services as well. While VPN services are usually more expensive, they do support features that web unblockers don't. While you can use most to access geo-restricted content on the Internet, VPNs improve security and privacy while on the Internet, and may provide you with options to use other services that are blocked or monitored such as P2P or online shopping.
Now You: Do you prefer VPNs or Web Unblockers?
Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?
Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.
Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.
huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.
yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.
Error:
Buidling font Cache pop-up
Solution:
Open VLC player.
On Menu Bar:
Tools
Preferences
(at bottom – left side)
Show settings — ALL
Open: Video
Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”
Save
Exit
Re-open – done.
Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts
Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc
Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.
@Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.
Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?
I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…
/thanks
/j
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.
No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure
Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me
I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).
Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?