Many Canadians are probably familiar with Pandora from it’s early days where there were no restrictions on who could listen to it. Then, many years back, they suddenly cut off access to all non Americans. This was devastating for me as it wasn’t so much a free radio station but rather a powerful tool for suggesting new music. It did a great job of deciding what styles of music you like and automatically queuing up similar music for you to listen to.

1. Step 1: Sign up for Your Trial at Unblock-Us
2. Step 2: Configure Your Device with your New DNS Settings
3. Step 3: Sign up at Pandora.com
4. Alternative Methods

Step 1: Sign up for Your Trial at Unblock-US

The key to this entire process is your account at Unblock-Us.com. They will provide you with some DNS settings that can be entered into your router or streaming device and will cloak your true location. Unlike with a VPN or proxy server you are not running your bandwidth through Unblock-Us.com. This means you will not be subjected to having your maximum internet speed cut short of it’s full potential and if the service goes down it will not take out your entire internet connection with it.

To create your account Simply punch in your email address and hit Start Trial. After your first month you will be billed $4.99 per month. This will not only allow you access to Pandora radio but also a plethora of other American services that are restricted outside of their country. I personally use it to access the American content on Netflix as the Canadian version has very less content available

Step 2: Configure Your Device with your New DNS Settings

This will certainly be the most challenging step for any non technical users. You will need to program the new DNS settings from Unblock-Us.com into either your router or the individual devices you wish to use to connect to Pandora. Rather than copy and paste the information from their site, I’ll now point you to their Knowledge Base for articles on how to set up common routers and devices to use their DNS settings. For those of you who know how to do this already, simply set your DNS as follows:

Outside of North America you’ll have to use different DNS settings. Please video the above Knowledge Base link for those DNS settings.

Now just Test Your Settings to make sure they work. If not, head back to their Knowledge Base for more help.

After your free 1 week trial any time you access Pandora or another one of the supported sites you’ll get sent back to their site letting you know the trial is over. First you’ll have to give them you’re email address again, at which point it will give you the option of setting up a subscription. You can use your PayPal account to fund this process or your credit card. After configuring the subscription you will be able to continue using the service and will have not have to complete this step again.

Step 3: Sign up at Pandora.com

Now that your device is set up you can go ahead and start using Pandora.com. I would start off by making an account so that it can start to learn what music you like. Or if you just want to quickly test it out, type in a name of a song you like and start jamming out!

Alternatives

There are several alternative methods to Unblock-Us.com but I’ve already covered them all in my post about using Netflix USA in Canada, so I would recommend reading them there.

Brad Fettes

A seasoned Senior Solutions Architect with 18 years of experience in technology design and implementation. Renowned for innovative solutions and strategic insights, he excels in driving complex projects to success. Outside work, he is a passionate fisherman and fish keeper, specializing in planted tanks.