Wanting to watch netflix, while not living in the USA, I typed “how to watch netflix outside the USA” into google, but it didn’t really return any useful results. Okay, they mostly are VPN websites promoting their VPNs, and you need a VPN or similar, but there is a bit more stuff to know about netflix.
First of all, you need to get an American or a Canadian IP address. Does it matter if it’s Canadian or US-American? Yes and no. For the sign up it does not matter, but you can watch fewer movies and series with a Canadian IP address than with a US-American one. The item of choice is either a VPN or a proxy server, I would recommend you to get both, depending on what you want to do with your netflix account. More about that later.
My IP address geolocated to the USA, nevertheless netflix recognized it as a Canadian one. How do you know? I can not tell you for sure. If I remember correctly, it shows your country after confirming your payment method. But don’t worry if it shows Canada, you can always find a different VPN or proxy later and will be able to watch everything; it’s not a final decision during sign up (like I thought at first).
I found out that “The Cleveland Show” does not seem to be available in Canada at the moment, so that should help you clarify which country netflix thinks you are in.
The sign up process is really easy, you enter your name and are redirected to the payment options – Credit Card and PayPal.
I don’t know if your name has to be the same like the one that is associated with the CC or PayPal account, but the country of the CC/PayPal account does not seem to matter.
The “easiest” method for the whole process of signing up and watching videos would be to get a PPTP VPN, add it with a few clicks to your system configuration (PPTP VPNs work out of the box on about any operating system) and to sign up using a Credit Card.
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!!IMPORTANT!!: If you pay via PayPal you can not use a VPN to sign up, as it routes all your traffic through the VPN. PayPal will notice that you are trying to log in from a different location and possibly lock your account. Hence I highly recommend you to get a proxy server, if you want to sign up with PayPal, and only route netflix.com through the proxy. You can do so with the firefox addon “foxyproxy”, but there are plenty of other alternatives.
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Currently, Netflix is giving away a free test month. It seems to have been like that for a long time, then they will automatically start charging you $7.99 a month, unless you cancel the subscription before the month runs out.
It seems to be fairly easy to cancel the subscription, just click the “Your Account” (or similar) button at the top right of the netflix main page and you will know where to click to cancel it.
Like mentioned above, using a proxy server instead of a VPN makes life easier, you can just use it with a firefox addon or additional program to only route netflix through the proxy, while all other pages still use the direct connection. Although you need to make sure that it is an “anonymous” proxy server. Many send VIA and other headers, that let websites know you are using a proxy, which will lead to netflix not allowing you access.
Now, why did I recommend you to get both, a VPN and a proxy server? Because a proxy server may be convenient for your desktop, but you can not use it on a phone. I have a nonrooted android, which only lets me use VPNs to change my IP address.
Netflix has an android app which also performs IP address checks, even though it can only be downloaded by people with a US-American or a Canadian SIM card. However, there is a google chrome addon to download the .apk file, which you can then install on your phone.
I would have been forced to use said downloader, even as an American, because, apparently, the app is not compatible with my phone, even though it works completely fine with my Galaxy Note.
Because it was really annoying to get the google chrome addon to wok to download the .apk, here it is:
http://tech.tiq.cc/ul/com.netflix.mediaclient.apk (newest version as of Feb 24th 2013)
Of course it is free of malware.
TL;DR:
For signup, use VPN+Credit Card or selective Proxy + Paypal.
To watch on your PC, use selective Proxy.
To watch on your android phone, use VPN + app (link above).
