The United Arab Emirates is one of the most exclusive places to visit in the planet. Cities are swimming in money and tourism is also one of the country’s big sources of income: Abu Dhabi, for instance, is known to host the final race of the F1 championship each year in one of the most beautiful landscapes of the calendar. Dubai is also becoming the home ground for some companies that are moving their headquarters to Arab lands.
However, the country is heavily repressive regarding public internet access, even though those sites which are mostly affected by censorship are still available. Regardless of that, Freedom House has been rating the country as not free in its annual Freedom on the Net Report since 2013. Furthermore, local authorities have classified using a VPN as illegal, making its use very risky – but not impossible.
First of all, services like the much acclaimed Netflix have their own local version, with some of the top series and movies even having Arab subtitles, but they are obviously not as vast as the U.S. versions. Aside from that, the main sources of news are the more than 70 free-to-air TV channels, some of them being quite exclusive and/or being available in specific territories only. The latter is the main reason why using an UAE IP address can be useful, because if you can find a good online stream you don’t have to worry about regional blocks anymore. Still, unlike the practice of many other Arab countries, UAE television content is not blocked outside its borders.
As we mentioned before, the United Arab Emirates has its own share of blocked online content, accompanied by strict privacy laws that severely punish those who violate them. Internet regulations are issued by the TRA (Telecom Regulatory Authority) which are applied by the two ISPs of the country (Etisalat and du) in the form of website blocks. Over the past few years even some TV channels were censored too, two in particular belonging to Pakistani satellite TV services. Furthermore, the big majority of VoIP service providers, including WhatsApp, Snapchat and Skype, are also completely blocked in the region. This is why the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders classifies UAE as one of the enemies of the free internet, while Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net Report labels the country as not free. In fact, FH gave worse and worse scores to the UAE, making the country reach newer lows on the list of the free countries in the world every year.
Even though internet censorship in the United Arab Emirates is rather strict, the country has been trying to show an open-minded image, especially since it has become such an iconic and rich tourist spot. The usual targets of repressive governments, such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are not blocked; in fact, they are the most popular sites in the UAE, just like they usually are in free countries. Notwithstanding, the content made public on the above sites is strictly controlled: legislation forbids anyone to publish content deemed to threat the public order and those who damage in any way the country’s state or show disrespect towards the religion may be sent to jail.
But if the main online platforms of freedom are not blocked then what is blocked? According to the reports of NGOs, websites offering adult content, gambling sites, politically sensitive material are not allowed to be accessed inside the UAE’s borders. In addition to that, certain parts of Wikipedia and all Israeli domains are also blocked, plus anything that goes against the moral values of the country. Furthermore, media publications must be licensed and shall follow official guidelines, leading to the unfortunate practice of self-censorship amongst journalists.
To pour even more salt to the wound of complete web surfing freedom, in 2015 the Dubai police stated that tempering with the internet using VPNs within the country is a crime, therefore it is illegal. However, when the use of VPNs should be considered a crime against the regime highly depends on your own use of the software. If you use a VPN for privacy purposes or to simply enhance your internet speed, then you’re fine. But if you use it for unblocking any outlawed content or you perform other illegal acts (like torrenting), you must face severe consequences. It is unknown whether the country uses a great firewall like China does to unveil VPN users looking for an unlimited internet access, but there are known cases where certain blocked websites, which were available with VPNs, became unavailable again, even with a VPN connection.
Like we said before, Netflix is available in the UAE, although on a much smaller scale. The list of available shows is quite impressive, but not even close to the vastness of the U.S. version. Unfortunately, Netflix is the only streaming service available in the United Arab Emirates. Spotify, for instance, is out of question due to a number of licensing rights that the UAE doesn’t want to deal with, while Hulu, Amazon Prime, BBC iPlayer and many more are also restricted to UAE internet users. What makes it even sadder is the fact that the UAE provides the best internet speeds in the whole Arab region which could grant some sweet HD streaming. Furthermore, it is very likely that this country will be the first in the Arabian Peninsula that will provide 5G as well once it is launched.
However, if we take into consideration the previous paragraph, using a VPN to access these streaming sites should be acceptable, since you are not breaking “the law” and you are not accessing illegal content.
First of all, please do not feel intimidated: the perhaps vulgar name of the UK-based company is intended to be a pun. HMA VPN has a mascot in the form of a donkey, and thus this little wordplay is nothing to worry about. You should rather pay attention to the fact that HMA VPN is easily one of the best VPN companies today; they offer much more than a standard package. You are also welcome to try out the free web proxy, an anonymous e-mail service and an IP:Port premium service, which is essentially a more elaborate proxy product. On top of this, you also have VPN browser extensions for Chrome and Mozilla to use. HMA VPN does all this while still maintaining decent speeds and healthy prices. These are coupled with the fact that HMA VPN remains one of few providers who still enable access to Netflix. But the most impressive thing about this organization is the number of locations provided – it is unprecedented today.
PureVPN has more than 6,000 servers worldwide with reliable, secire, and uninterrupted connections, compatibility with over 50 devices, and excellent customer service.
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