Watch Netflix US from anywhere in the world
As you may know, Netflix offers different catalogs of movies and TV shows that are “country based”. It means, that if you are watching Netflix from the US, you’ll only get access to the US catalog. If you are, in the UK, then you’ll only have access to the UK catalog and so on. Since there is quite a lot of differences between those catalogs it can be interesting to have access to all of them. Unfortunately, Netflix won’t let you do so, but don’t panic there are workarounds.
I’ll share with you the one I have been using for almost a year.
My good ol' VPN
Of course, we’ll be using a VPN! But wait, I thought Netflix was blocking VPNs? Well, yes and no. Netflix is blocking “major' and well known VPNs based on their IP addresses. However, some VPN resellers can still evade the VPN detection by providing “private” IP to their customer. Those IPs won’t be automatically blocked by Netflix, and if somehow Netflix starts blocking your IP/VPN, then just ask support, and you’ll get a new one in just a few minutes.
This was for the theory, let’s see the practical details.
TorGuard Anonymous VPN
I have been using this service for almost a year now, and I am very happy with it! Support is reactive and they know their stuff. I also had to ask once for a new IP, because mine had been blocked by Netflix, and it took less than 10 minutes to get a new working IP. Again, I am very impressed. Speed wise, it is also perfectly able to stream full HD (1080p). I also tried Netflix in 4K for one month and I didn’t see any speed issue. However, I do not think that the extra cost Netflix is charging for 4K is worth it, so I cancelled it, but this is another matter.
On the protocols side, they offer many of them : OpenVPN (which is the one I use), PPTP, IPsec, L2TP, SSTP.
You can also have up to 5 connections at the same time, which means if you have “multi screen” Netflix account, you can all watch something different from the US catalog at the same time.
By the way, when I say “US catalog”, it could also be Japanese Netflix, UK Netflix, French Netflix, etc. Torguard is offering several different IP locations. However, you can’t just change them on the fly. Since they allocate you a “private” IP, you have to pay for each and every location you want to use.
A question of speed
EDIT : new information from November 18th 2018.
This is something I didn’t think about it… but this is also something I don’t think is relevant.. at least not to me. I was probably wrong, and I’ll share some “speed” figures.
Before starting, let me tell you that my ISP has been classed one of the worst of my country with Netflix. This is because my ISP decided to not sign any agreement with Netflix in order to “host” locally some Netflix server “internally” (not technically true, but I hope you see the idea).
Raw ISP speed
My ISP raw download speed on Speedtest.net is around 90 Mbps :
and it drops to less than 20 Mbps on Netflix servers :
TorGuard Speed
Now with Torguard and Speedtest.net, we have about 71 Mbps :
And Torguard on Netflix servers gives us about 40 Mbps as well :
Please also note, that speed for Torguard were not really consistent…. it went from 20 Mbps to 50 Mbps.
How it works
There is several ways to use it.
- You can use the Android / IOS app, so that you can watch Netflix US from phone / tablet, and even some Android TV / and or box ;
- If you prefer to use a browser extension, no problem ;
- You could even install a VPN client on any of your computer (MacOS, Windows, Linux) and then watch Netflix US from those devices ;
- If you feel adventurous, the most advanced and most powerful way being to install the VPN client on your router : that way and depending on your router, you can have all or some devices from your home to use the VPN. For example, it means that ONLY your TV can use the VPN while your computer use your “regular” internet access.
- and more…
NB : Please note that using such service might violate Netflix’s ToS !