Seeing "Girls" and Other HBO Shows With HBO Go Would the "Girls" character Hannah Horvath, a young Brooklynite without much cash, subscribe to HBO? Or would she rely on her friends? That's what some fans are doing to keep up with that six-week-old series, which has become must-see TV for certain areas of New York City and other corners of the country whose residents tend not to own television sets. At bars and in Facebook messages, fans are asking to borrow the passwords of their HBO-subscribing neighbors so they can watch episodes through HBO GO, the network's online video Web site. In keeping with the spirit of Ms. Horvath's character, played by Lena Dunham, who is trying to live in the city without her parents" help, some of her 20-something fans depend on their friends for access. Others, though, are open to parental support. When Nellie Chaban first called her father in Philadelphia to ask about HBO GO, "I tried to make it so that I wasn't calling him just to get his password. So how was your vacation? "Oh, and there's this great HBO service online ..." " she said, imitating the call. He happily provided the necessary details, and she soon found herself engrossed in "Girls" and other HBO series like "Game of Thrones" and "Boardwalk Empire" on HBO GO. "He doesn't know how to use it, anyway," said Ms. Chaban, 28, an arts educator who lives in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, where "Girls" is set. For Web-savvy young people who don't own television sets, HBO GO - which started two years ago but has been available to many cable subscribers in New York only since January - has opened up a new avenue for consumption of TV. New episodes of "Girls" and other HBO shows appear on HBO GO at roughly the same time that they have their first showing on the network, so online viewers can be ready for the proverbial water cooler the next morning. Of course HBO GO is intended only for HBO's cable and satellite subscribers; the company depends on its existing deals with cable and satellite providers and has repeatedly rebuffed suggestions to let people pay for HBO GO on its own. But as online pleas for help prove - "Can someone give me their HBO GO password?" read one such Twitter message on Tuesday - there are workarounds. Up to a point, account sharing is permissible; HBO GO allows subscribers to have three separate accounts so that family members can watch different shows at the same time. Some fans might be testing that limit by sharing passwords with friends, but HBO, at least publicly, isn't cracking down on the practice, partly because it doesn't know how widespread it is. A spokesman for the network declined to comment on the matter. In private, HBO executives did not dispute the notion that the password borrowing could lead young people to subscribe to HBO in the future. Once they can afford it, that is. Davis Neves, 33, an actress in Los Angeles, said she was "dying to find a way" to see "Girls," having watched the first episode free on YouTube, where it was previewed this spring. She hasn't finagled an HBO GO password from any friends or family members yet. "I'm thinking of conning my parents into it when I visit this summer," she said in an e-mail. C'mon, TV should be free! Such sharing of accounts might become more frequent as more television networks make their programming available on the Internet for cable and satellite subscribers. Showtime now has a Web service like HBO GO, and other networks are gradually moving their wares online too, in coordination with major distributors like Comcast and DirecTV. The Sunday night telecasts of "Girls" have been drawing about one million viewers on television each week, only a modest total for HBO. But, as with most of HBO's programs, much of the viewing happens later via repeats, digital video recorder playback, cable video-on-demand systems and HBO GO. The network said the first episode of "Girls" had garnered more than 4.1 million viewers to date. At a cable industry conference this week, HBO's co-president, Eric Kessler, said, "Right now, the vast majority of our viewing continues to be on the linear service and on the on-demand service." Across the network, 93 percent of viewing is on television; 6 percent is through on-demand; and 1 percent is through HBO GO, he said. But for shows aimed at a younger audience, there's a bigger chunk of on-demand and online viewership, he said. For "Girls," for instance, HBO GO accounts for about 4 percent of the total audience.