Daniel Eichhorn
The following how-to describes how you can watch Netflix on your boxee even if you are living outside of a country where Netflix is available.
First of all you need a Netflix account. For USD 7.99 per month you can watch all their series and movies they have available. In my country VOD services cost that amount PER MOVIE!
- To register for Netflix I used the Hola Unblocker Plugin for Chrome (https://hola.org/). After installing it you should be ready to go. The unblocker tricks Netflix into thinking that you are within the US. Alternatively you can use a VPN or Tunlr (http://tunlr.net/)
- Then you go to the Netflix page and register an account. Don’t use the “Connect to Facebook” button. In my case I kept returning to the main page. I think that Netflix checks your location in Facebook and blocks any further progress if you are not living in a supported country. After entering email and password you add your credit card details. I read that PayPal doesn’t work since the delivery address contains your country but I didn’t confirm this. Together with the credit card details you have to add the ZIP code of a US city. I picked one here, to be sure that it exists: http://www.zip-area.com/.
- Now enjoy Netflix on your workstation. BTW: the first month is free. If you don’t like the service just cancel it before the first 30 days are over
To get Netflix running on your Boxee you need to do some additional steps. The company behind the boxee box announced in 2012 that it would no longer maintain the software on the D-Link boxee box and that users would be on their own, which is really sad because the boxee is such a cute box and I like the simple remote control that makes it perfect for the couch.
- First of all head over to http://tunlr.net/get-started/get-started-with-a-mac/ and write down the IPs for the replacement DNS server. At the time of this writing it was 69.197.169.9 and 192.95.16.109, but that might change.
- Start your boxee and go to the network settings. If you are using DHCP change the settings to manual and replace the DNS server entry with one from Tunlr. I read somewhere that the second one worked, so I used 192.95.16.109, but maybe the first one works as well.
- Optional: For testing I opened the boxee browser and navigated to Netflix.com and logged in. If Tunlr doesn’t play it’s magic here you won’t be able to login. Note: watching movies on the boxee browser doesn’t work. You will only get a page that says that the hard/software is not supported!
- In order to get see the Netflix App on boxee you need to install BOXEE+Hacks. This is a non-intrusive inofficial extension to the boxee firmware and can be installed with a few simple steps. Beside other nice additions it makes the otherwise hidden Netflix App visible. Follow the step-by-step guide here: http://boxeeplus.com/
- You will realize that Boxee+Hacks has been succesfully installed if the start logo changed from Boxee to Boxee Hacks and the home screen looks different. I had to do the procedure of installing hacks twice… Once it is active head over to the Apps page and look for the Netflix app. When you select it you have to choice to add it to your favourites. This will make it easier to start it later. When the app is installed login with your credentials and start enjoying endless lists of movies and series!
Thanks for the info
I tried to watch netflix but since i am outside the usa it would not let me. I ended up finding out I could use a vpn to access the content. The arcvpn service seems ok so far.