Why is my country still detected by streaming services?
Hi
I just started the trial on Freedome for Windows. I live in Finland and connected Freedome to a US server to unlock streaming content but i still get a message that the content is not available for my region (FI).
I tried connections to both, east and west US. Whatsmyip.com gives me an US ip address (i suspect) from ie. west US (108.168.xxx.xxx) and location there but Netflix and Youtube seem to know that i'm still connecting from Finland. What can cause this and how to fix it?
I'm using Windows 7 64 bit and i'm connected over 4G.
Thanks!
Comments
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Thanks, but that wasn't my problem at all.
Your linked article explains why services like whatsmyip.com can give me an ip address that is not on the country i've selected, am i right?
As i described on my post my problem is that Netflix and Youtube still see me connecting from Finland even tho i've selected Freedome for US server.
And i also wrote that whatsmyip does give me US ip and location but these services still don't recognize the VPN as working. Just as reference, not as my actual problem as that part was only thing that was actually working.
So i would appreciate if my post was reviewed.
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Thank you for your quick reply.
Could you try to use inprivate/Private/Incognito browsing, depending on your Browser?
You could also try to clear the cache of your browser and make sure not to accept to give away your location (IE, Firefox, Chrome).
It could be that you allowed at some point to reveal your location to these services.
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Thank you for trying to help.
It seems Freedome won't be able to solve the Netflix problem.. I tried incognito mode, cleared cache and all but it still locates me in Finland. I think it's due the fact that Netflix is subscribe service and they know the country you're from. I just wonder how that would play out if i would move to US..
I can view some Youtube content that was previously blocked in my country, so this kinda works but Netflix is the service i would be getting Freedome for, so..
Unless you know for certain this should work with Netflix, it's a no for me on this. Sadly.
I tried the Freedome when it came out for iPad and it worked then but i guess Netflix is fighting back..
Anyone else come across this issue? Please let me know i'm not alone
Good thing is you provided this trial period. I hope this gets sorted!
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Yes, it makes sense that a subscription service such as Netflix will only show you the content your subscription entitles you to, regardless of which country their servers get your IP address from. It's not going to switch you to a US account just because you happen to be 'visiting' from there.
Where the VPN does work is where the services block content by country, rather than subscription - YouTube and BBC iPlayer, for example. -
@PlasmaGsus wrote:Thank you for trying to help.
It seems Freedome won't be able to solve the Netflix problem.. I tried incognito mode, cleared cache and all but it still locates me in Finland. I think it's due the fact that Netflix is subscribe service and they know the country you're from. I just wonder how that would play out if i would move to US..
I can view some Youtube content that was previously blocked in my country, so this kinda works but Netflix is the service i would be getting Freedome for, so..
Unless you know for certain this should work with Netflix, it's a no for me on this. Sadly.
I tried the Freedome when it came out for iPad and it worked then but i guess Netflix is fighting back..
Anyone else come across this issue? Please let me know i'm not alone
Good thing is you provided this trial period. I hope this gets sorted!
I had the same problem too. I did investigate it for a while, but did not find a quick solution. Had I continued to investigate the problem I would have used Wireshark to capture what really happens in the network interface. But since Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 (developer preview) do not have this issue when using the Netflix client from the Windows Store, I simply updated my old Windows 7 laptop to Windows 10. Problem solved. Updating to W10 is of course a viable option only if you are not using you computer for any 'production' use and you realize all data on you computer can (and will...) be erased (eventually when you need to reinstall W10 from a scratch because update breaks software...).
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Hi, I found this thread when looking for solutions to the exactly same problem. Netflix somehow still sees that I'm located in Finland (like I really am) instead of USA, where I have set my Freedome location to be.
But the funny thing is that if I change Freedome location to London, Paris or even Melbourne, I will get access to those locations' content in Netflix without any problems. So only (west and east coast) USA locations are giving me this issue. England, France and other locations work well with Netflix. This is really annoying because to be able to access streaming service contents from different countries was one of the main reasons I purchased licenses for Freedome. And to make this seem even more complicated, I have used Freedome happily for one month after the free trial and I am quite sure that Netflix USA was working for me at some point in the beginning. Otherwise I wouldn't have bought the license, exactly like OP.
I'm really hoping that this issue gets some research by F-Secure. I know there are other ways of accessing US content in Netflix, like Media Hint addon for Firefox, but that requires me to disable Freedome!
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I can not recommend that you use a VPN when accessing Netflix. It breaks their terms of service and you become liable for them to shut off your account without compensation.
See C and H within the sub-section 6. Netflix Service, within section 5 Membership, Free-trials, Billing, and Cancellation at this link: https://www.netflix.com/TermsOfUse
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Apparently the way Netflix uses to check out your location is by the WEBRTC leak.
I did this to my firefox and can enjoy US and UK netflix from Finland.WebRTC implement STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for Nat), a protocol that allows to discover the public IP address. To disable it:
- Mozilla Firefox: Type about:config” in the address bar. Scroll down to “media.peerconnection.enabled”, double click to set it to false.
- Google Chrome users: No solution exists yet.
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I encounter the story. In both Chrome and Firefox. Tried the WebRTC thing, to no avail. Played around with privacy settings, and enabling and disabling extensions like ghostery, privacy badger, and HTTPS Everywhere. After one evening of trying, it seems to work at random now.
Apparently we have to wait until the Win10 app, a few more days... -
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Hey Ben,
Thanks for the follow-up. I must confess I am a bit reluctant to upgrade to Win10. Also, somehow my computer and the Freedome service did not go well together. It was not just the lower bandwidth (with which I can live), but random lookup troubles. So, I on my PC I've switched.
On my tablet and smartphone, however, no such problems and Freedome is running like a charm. There the user-friendly UI and tracker blocking really makes the difference.
Regards!
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