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Watch House of Cards Online – How To Unlock It Outside US?

By Paul Liu
Friday, August 23rd, 2013

Living outside of the US or other areas where Netflix is not available? Not to worry, this article will let you know all the steps that will unlock Netflix and House of Cards wherever in the world you are based, and regardless of security firewalls.

House of Cards is a political drama series that made its debut in February, 2013. The series was developed by Beau Willimon for Netflix and is based on a novel by Michael Dobbs. The original novel was also adapted for a miniseries by the BBC in the early nineties. The series has proved to be a hit with the critics and audiences alike and helped Netflix earn 9 Emmy Award nominations during the 65th Primetime Emmy awards.

House Of Cards Synopsis

House of Cards tells the story of betrayal and revenge in the political corridors of Washington D.C. A democrat, Frank Underwood, helps his friend, Garrett Walker, to become the President of the United States and expects to get appointed as the Secretary of State in return. But when Frank learns that Garrett never wanted him to be a part of his cabinet, he decides to take revenge on those who betrayed him. The series features Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, Corey Stoll and Kate Mara in lead roles while David Fincher acts as the executive producer.

House of Cards Availability

All the episodes of House of Cards series are available for online viewing through the Netflix streaming service. However, since the Netflix service is available only within limited geographical areas (US, UK, Canada plus few South American and European countries), people cannot watch House Of Cards online from all over the world. If you try to watch the latest and old episodes of the series from outside US, you will come across the message – “Sorry, Netflix is not available in your country yet”. Such country based restrictions are especially problematic for expats, students studying abroad and frequent fliers since they are not able to watch their favorite TV shows and movies even after paying subscription money to Netflix.

How Netflix Is Able To Block Access To House Of Cards

Whenever you connect to any website, you send a lot of information (including your location information) to the content provider through your IP address. Since Netflix has the power to detect your location, it can easily block access to House of Cards (and other shows) if try to access the show from outside the countries where the service is officially available. In order to access Netflix movies and TV shows from outside US, you will need to change your IP address and get a US based IP so that Netflix thinks that you are connecting to the site from within United States. When it comes to changing IP address, proxies and virtual private networks are considered as the best solutions. VPNs deliver far better speeds than proxies plus they never leak true IP addresses so they are considered ideal for unlocking streaming services like Netflix.

How To Watch House Of Cards From Abroad With A VPN

1) Choose a VPN service having at least one server within United States. To enjoy House of Cards episodes, we recommend choosing from VyprVPN, Overplay, proXPN, ExpressVPN, PureVPN, HideMyAss, IPVanish, and Invisible Browsing, etc. mainly because these VPN providers can provide unparalleled streaming and buffering speeds at a very affordable subscription price.

2) The second step is to configure the VPN service on your Smartphone, tablet or computer. Refer to welcome email from your VPN provider and setup the service (or install the client) as per the instructions provided by your VPN company. For Smartphones and tablets, you do not have to install anything but you do need to create a new VPN connection.

3) Save the changes or restart your computer if required. For mobile devices, you would also need to close and restart the Netflix app so that it can use the new network settings.

4) Start the VPN program by clicking on the VPN icon or by tapping the Connect button present next to the VPN service name.

5) Select a US based VPN server if you are not already connected to one. A large number of VPN providers have servers at several locations around the world so you will have to choose a server from US manually in order to unlock House of Cards episodes. In case the VPN provider has several servers located inside the US, select a server that is closest to your present location to get faster video streaming speeds.

6) Connect to the Netflix site and click on the House Of Cards program name in order to watch full episodes. To watch the program through handheld mobile devices, close the Netflix native app and restart it to unblock all the streaming features. If you face connection errors or speed issues, make sure to get the issue resolved by contacting the support staff of the VPN provider. You can now watch House Of Cards from any location in the world.