iPad

Get US Netflix on Your iPad with a VPN

There’s nothing sweeter in life than having the iPad in bed and draining away the last few hours of the day with a good Netflix session.  Unless you can’t access US Netflix, then there might be a bitter taste in your mouth, because so many of our favourite shows are only available on the US version.  Users from other countries are getting screwed because they are generally paying a similar amount, but getting half to a third or even a sixth of the amount of content that the US has.  The poor South Koreans must actually have to go outside if their Netflix has under 700 shows and movies available.  Anyone who is scared to go outside is probably at the front of the line of people who are wondering how to get US Netflix on their iPads.

Fear not, there is a way of getting around this drought of shows in other countries like Australia.  No, it doesn’t involve buying a kite and going outside to pretend it’s the 1940s.  It involves a hi-tech solution that is much more suitable for generation Y’s style.  What’s even better is that it’s not complicated, so the Baby Boomers can take advantage of it too.

The solution is a VPN.  A Virtual Private Network if you don’t care for brevity.  The technicalities of a VPN are too complicated for this article to explain, but they are essentially a network that allows your web traffic to be encrypted and even pretend that it is coming from a different location.

So, with a VPN you can use internet trickery to fool Netflix into thinking that you are actually using their service from the US, even though you may be in Guatemala or Antarctica.  Yes, you can get US Netflix on you iPad.  It serves them right for making you pay just as much money for a lower level of service than US customers get.

Using a VPN isn’t illegal per se, at least not currently.  Despite this, Netflix aren’t a fan of users accessing content from different regions, because of content agreements and other boring legal things.  In the past they have tried to block some users from using certain VPNs to stream their geo-restricted shows, but that’s why we like to use ExpressVPN for accessing US Netflix.

ExpressVPN is one of the best VPN providers on the market.  It’s simple to use and the people behind it really care about the privacy and security of their users.  They also have the technical ability to stay one step ahead of Netflix’s feeble attempts to block VPN users from accessing their content.  This is why they are our favourite and the one we recommend to others, however there are many other choices out there.

Okay, so back to lying in bed with your iPad.  How do you use a VPN to get US Netflix?  We’ve set up this simple, step-by-step guide to access US Netflix on your iPad with ExpressVPN.  No more feeling like a peasant due to geo-restricted content!

Before you start, you will need to have an iTunes account to download the Netflix app.  This is super easy to do.  You will also need to make sure that you have the latest firmware installed on your iPad, otherwise this configuration may not work.  Last, but far from least, make sure that you do the reconfiguration over a Wi-Fi network.  It’s unlikely to work on 3G.

Step 1: Sign Up For an ExpressVPN Account

Unfortunately, they don’t give them away for free, but they do offer a 30 day refund so you can try it out at no risk to you.  Go to their website and sign up for a monthly subscription.  All you need is an email address and a payment method.

Once you have signed up, you will receive a welcome email with a link as well as your login details.  Sign in with your username and password, then click on [Set Up ExpressVPN].  It will be on the [Active Subscriptions] page.

Once this is done, you will be able to open the [iPad] section.  In here, you will find the [MediaStreamer DNS server IP address].  Write this number down or copy it somewhere.

Step 2: Configure Your iPad

Once you have signed up with ExpressVPN, you will need to configure your iPad with ExpressVPN’s DNS settings.  This will make Netflix think that your traffic is coming from the US.

  1. Go to [Settings] on your iPad and then click on [Wi-Fi].    Touch the blue arrow that is pointing to whichever network that you would like to connect to.
  2. Once you have done this, a new side-screen will come up.  You will already be on the [DHCP] tab, so all you have to do is scroll down to [DNS].
  3. You will see some numbers there, which you might want to write down for safekeeping just in case you ever decide to revert to your old settings.
  4. Delete the numbers that are there and insert the [MediaStreamer DNS server IP address] that you wrote down in step 1.

Step 3: Reboot and Log In

To make everything that you just did work, you must:

  1. Reboot your iPad.
  2. Login to your ExpressVPN account using your web browser.  ExpressVPN will check your service status to make sure everything is okay.  A dialogue box will tell you if there have been any changes to your internet address.
  3. Click [Click here to activate your new internet address].  This will allow ExpresVPN to identify you,  let you know if there are any unpaid invoices or if your account has been             terminated.

These last few steps are just to ensure that everything is working.  Hopefully by now it’s all up and running and you will be able to get US Netflix on your iPad.

More Nerdy Stuff about Netflix USA on iPads

If someone from the past were to visit us today, they will be surprised to see the size of our computing devices. The large room-sized computers have been replaced by laptops. In fact, mobility has become such a requirement that tablets are becoming commonplace. The most well-known of these is the Apple iPad.

Apple also recognises that television viewing is changing, which is why the Apple iPad comes with the app for Netflix. Netflix can be viewed on a range of devices and the Apple iPad is one of them.

With Netflix Australia, iPads can become a veritable mobile television screen. As long as you have a fast enough internet connection and a subscription to Netflix, you can watch anything. This is of course limited to what content Netflix Australia has made available.

That is a problem all for the users of Netflix Australia, iPad users or otherwise. The content library for Australia is so small compared to Netflix USA that it almost does not seem worth it. However, there is a simple solution that can fix that issue.

For the Netflix iPad Australia users, the solution to getting access to the 9000 titles available to American viewers comes in the form of ExpressVPN. This DNS redirection service allows you to get content from not just American Netflix but also UK, Canada, and New Zealand.

Get ExpressVPN for Netflix IPad Australia to Get More Content

In order to get this service working on your Apple iPad, you need to first create an account with ExpressVPN. All you have to do is fill out their form and select the payment plan. For $50 for the annual plan, it is not bad value for money. You even get a 7 day trial for free to check if you like their services or not.

To get American content on Netflix Australia, iPad network settings need to be tweaked a bit. Netflix gives you content based on your location, which it knows because of your IP address. ExpressVPN simply sends you to Netflix through its own DNS servers with an IP address from the US.

Because of this tiny bit of trickery, the app for Netflix iPad, Australia-based, starts believing it is in the US and shows you the relevant content. This means that you will need to configure the wireless connection to take you to the ExpressVPN servers.

This is accomplished by going into the settings application of your Apple iPad and selecting the Wi-Fi settings. You will see the network to which you are connected, and if you select it, you can make changes to its settings.

To switch to American content from Netflix Australia, iPad DNS settings need to point towards the ExpressVPN DNS servers. Therefore, in the DNS field in the settings, replace the current values with the values from ExpressVPN.

Once the changes have been saved, you will need to shut down your Apple iPad and restart it. You might also need to visit the ExpressVPN web page on your browser to check if the service is activated. If everything is working properly, you should be able to get American Netflix on iPad in Australia.

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