Get US Netflix in Australia
Did you sign up for Australian Netflix? Were you slightly disappointed? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. We were all hoping that there would be a whole lot more content when they finally brought the service to Australia. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. All that waiting and we got screwed. Oh well, at least Australian’s are used to it. Remember when we used to have to wait six or so months to get the premiere of a US series? I shudder to think back to those days. The horror. At least things have improved since then. If only we could get US Netflix in Australia.
Even though we can now get some shows at basically the same time as the US, unfortunately it’s quite a slim range in the land of the NBN and a rotisserie of Prime Ministers. Our access pales in comparison to the US’s.
Why Would I Want to Get US Netflix in Australia?
Well, the US was where it all started, actually as a mail-order DVD company. Thankfully they started streaming their content in 2007 and they have since seen their popularity explode as streaming became more viable with technological improvements. Because it started in the US, they had the time to build up the biggest content base. By the time they launched in countries like Australia, a lot of shows already had distribution agreements with other broadcasters. This means that legally, they can’t offer you a way to get US Netflix in Australia without breaching these contracts.
As of January, Australian Netflix had access to only 2092 programs, while Americans could watch 5760. No wonder Australians want to get US Netflix. It gets worse when you consider that Australian’s pay about the same as people from the US, even though they get about a third of the content.
You can’t really blame Netflix for this, because they are just trying to do their best with the existing agreements in place. It gets even more complex with other content providers such as Hulu or cable companies all competing for exclusive distribution rights for certain shows. I’m sure that Netflix would happily be the sole provider, but unfortunately their competitors have a few words to say about that.
Whether or not it is Netflix’s fault, it still seems unfair to have to pay the same amount for so little content.
How Does Netflix Know Where I Am?
Netflix have spies in your cupboard. Creepy, I know.
Fortunately, they don’t. They’re not quite on the same level as the NSA. How they actually figure out where you are involves something called a DNS, a Domain Name System. Whenever you connect to a website, you use a DNS.
DNS servers pass on your IP address to whatever website you are visiting. IP addresses are sorted by location, so this means that when you log on to Netflix, they will know where you are from straight away. Because it knows where you are, it directs you to your country’s content page. This is why if you log onto Netflix from Australia, you can’t get US Netflix.
How Do I Get Around It?
Thankfully, there’s a solution, and you can thank whoever you bullied in high school. Those computer science majors have saved us once again and come up with a way to get US Netflix in Australia. You just have to mask your IP address.
Our favourite way to do this is with ExpressVPN. There are many other choices, but we just feel that ExpressVPN is one of the best in terms of privacy and security. They provide great service and really know what they are doing on the technical side of things.
All you have to do is sign up to ExpressVPN. It’s easy to do, all they want is an email address and some kind of payment. They also have a 30 day refund, so there’s no risk if you want to try it. Once you have your account set up, you can change your DNS settings and you will be able to trick Netflix into thinking that you are accessing their content from the US. We have step-by-step guides to do this, no matter what device you use. Happy streaming.