Since our recent invite bonanza, we've enjoyed the heck out of our Hulu membership. But, since its inception, Hulu has been a US-only party. And, while OPENHulu or TVparadise opened up Hulu to a crowd of non-invitees, international users were still out of luck.

Of course if you're willing to trick Hulu into thinking your non-US computer is actually connected to a US internet connection, you can get around that restriction. One way for non-US residents to watch Hulu videos is by using a program called Hotspot Shield. We say "it seems" because, since we are inside the US, we don't have a method of testing whether or not this works.

Here's how it done:

Hotspot Shield is a free program which creates a virtual private network between your computer and a wireless router. While its focus is mainly on protecting your private information from hackers (you've seen them before: those shady characters sunk deep into a comfy chair at Starbucks, a Dell on their lap, a dark beanie almost covering their eyes, a decaf java chip mocha Frappucino melting silently on the table next to them), in this case, it keeps Hulu from recognizing that you are outside the US. Therefore, because Hulu doesn't know where you are from, it assumes the best and gives you full, unadulterated access to all content.

The best thing is, if this works, it will work for all US-only sites (Hello, Pandora)!

International Download Squad readers, please let us know if this works for you in the comments.

[Via profit42.com, thanks Denis!]