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How to Watch the Family Guy Online Outside of the US

By Paul Liu
Monday, November 4th, 2013

Family Guy is an adult animated situational-comedy TV series which airs on the Fox channel. The series was created by Seth MacFarlane and its first season debuted in January’ 1999. Family Guy has received a fabulous response from the viewers (IMDB rating of 8.4) and the series has even won Emmy, Annie, Teen Choice and People’s Choice awards for its past seasons. The show has inspired books, live performances, video games as well as several spin-off series and there are even plans to adapt the series for a feature film. The twelfth season of the series premiered in September’ 2013 and the season is scheduled to run until Spring 2014.

Family Guy Storyline and Plot

The Family Guy series revolves around the dysfunctional Griffins family living in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island. The family consists of the parents, Peter and Lois Griffins, two teenagers, Meg and Chris; and a young baby Stewie, who is trying to get rid of his mother. The household has another member, Brian, a cynical anthropomorphic dog who is more intelligent than all the humans living in the house. The show relies on cutaway gags for its humor and often makes fun of American culture and way of living.

Family Guy Broadcast Schedule And Availability

Family Guy is telecast during the Sunday night 9 P.M. slot on the Fox channel. The series episodes can also be viewed online by visiting the Family Guy page on the Fox website (fox.com/familyguy). Due to the content licensing restrictions, the online episodes of the show are not yet available outside United States. The US expats and frequent fliers who try to watch the series online come across the message – “The video you are attempting to watch is only available to viewers within the US, US territories, and military bases.”

How Fox Blocks Family Guy Online?

To facilitate the distribution of Family Guy outside USA, Fox has tied-up with many TV channels and content providers (BBC Three in UK, Seven Network in Australia, Global Network in Canada, Four Channel in New Zealand). Due to the content sharing agreements signed by Fox and its partners, the channel is no longer permitted to broadcast the show outside US mainland. Fox relies on the IP detection technology to find the location of the people visiting its portal and then restricts international visitors from accessing the show’s episodes. People who visit the Fox portal with a US IP address do not face any kind of restriction and are allowed to watch Family Guy’s full episodes and other special features online.

If you wish to watch Family Guy from abroad, you need to switch to a US IP address through an IP changing service. There are hundreds of proxy and VPN providers that can provide US IP addresses at a very low subscription cost. While proxies remain the preferred medium to change IPs, VPNs deliver top notch streaming speeds and unbeatable privacy that are so vital for unlocking streaming shows from abroad.

How To Watch Family Guy From Overseas With A VPN

Step 1: First, you need to subscribe to a VPN service that offers unrestricted speed and bandwidth along with US IP addresses. If you are not aware of any relaible VPN service provider, we recommend signing up with Kepard, HideMyAss, ExpressVPN, StrongVPN or IPVanish since these VPN companies are renowned for their US VPN service.

Step 2: After the subscription process is complete, configure the service on your favorite device. Depending on whether you want to configure the service on a mobile device or computer, it may even be possible to setup the service through a custom tool. A lot of VPN companies provide proprietary software for Windows and Mac based computers but mobile devices that run on iOS or Android often need manual configuration.

Step 3: Save the connection parameters to finalize the setup process. If you installed any software on your system then you may even have to reboot the machine. After saving the changes on your mobile device, make sure to close and restart the Fox app so that it can use VPN connection parameters to connect to the web.

Step 4: Connect to the newly setup service by clicking on the VPN Connection name and then choosing the Connect option. Even though most VPN services are known be extremely fast, the time needed to connect to the VPN server also depends on the current internet speed and distance of the server from your location.

Step 5: Before you can unlock Family Guy episodes, you must ensure that you have a US IP address. This can be done by visiting an IP checking website after connecting to the service. A lot of VPN vendors have servers in multiple countries so it is not unusual to get a non-US IP address by default. In such cases, remember to visit the server list section on your vendor’s website and choose a US server located near your current location as your VPN server of choice.

Step 6: Visit the Family Guy page on the Fox website again through your browser or app. Click on different episode names to ensure that you are able to watch the videos without facing any kind of GEO-IP restriction. If you are still unable to unlock the episodes on your mobile device, close and restart the Fox app after switching to a US IP. Congratulations, you now have the power to watch Family Guy episodes from any corner of the planet.