How to view the World Cup online

[AreliusIV]

Q. I am mired in a corporate office during the World Cup this year. I occasionally leave the building and go watch the games, but sometimes I actually have to be at work. Is there any way that I can use the power of the almighty Internet to see the games live?

A. There are plenty of places around the Web to keep up with the latest World Cup news until the international soccer tournament ends on July 9. ESPN360 is streaming many matches live at http://espn.go.com; while the service is ordinarily available only to subscribers to certain broadband providers, it is being offered without restriction through July 19. Corporate firewalls may be an issue.

The BBC (www.bbc.co.uk) plans to stream all 64 World Cup matches over its Web site; it says the service is available only to those living in Britain, though some blogging soccer fans have reported success with proxy servers that can evade this restriction. If you can't find a compatible source for streaming, there are other ways to keep up with the games. For example, Yahoo is host of the official World Cup site at http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com, and Firefox users can download the Joga.com Companion extension (http://www.mozilla.com/add-ons/jogacompanion/), which pops up news of all the latest goals, yellow cards and match developments right in the browser window.