Streaming Netflix
 

I'm going to France in two days and I was wondering about streaming Netflix while over there. I know that you can't just stream, that you would have to use one of the VPN services to mask your IP address. Is it worth it? Also, our hotel has free WIFI, and I'm just wondering what can't of impact streaming anything would have on the hotel. If the hotel doesn't restrict usage per each room, would it detrimentally affect the rest of the hotel? Would it be something they would allow?

Paris is the greatest, maddest cinema city in the world. Why sit in you room when you can find a mutliplex or tiny art cinema around practically any corner? The classics are constantly revived while international releases are up-to-the-month if not the minute. Look for the designation VO, or "version originale", to find films with the original English soundtrack. Time Out Paris carries listings weekly http://www.timeout.fr/paris/en Or you can visit the venerable Cinematheque Francaise, a shrine to movies, where there are always special programs running. A bonus is the chance to see how the building, in the Bercy area, was redesigned by architect superstar Frank Gehry, made famous by the Guggenheim Bilbao. The cinematheque's program page is in French but you can guess at its American features pretty easily and there's a big store of historical information in English at http://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/practi...formation.html including one of those awkwardly bulky PDF files.

I'm a netflix addict here but never,ever in France,a place I love but can't affotd to go to often. I don't own a cell phone, a kindle, or any of those things. I enjoy that country to the fullest as is possible.

I suspect that you would have problems but not in the areas you mentioned. Even if you don't use up hotel's bandwidth, there will be someone else uploading/download videos to take over the bandwidth you did not use. The hotel Wifi I have used in France were quite slow. Once thing I notice was that the hotels' fire doors really blocked the Wifi signal.

You're in Paris. You're on your honeymoon. Why the heck would you even think about Netflix? Get out of the hotel and enjoy Paris.

Amen to all the above.

Hotel wifi everywhere -- not just in Europe -- has been maddeningly slow in my experience. But with Paris out the door, I can't imagine sitting in the room.

Maybe the op can't sleep and just need little help.

<i>Look for the designation VO, or "version originale", to find films with the original English soundtrack.</i>

Or the original Russian, Mandarin, Wolof, Greek or Portuguese soundtracks.

Yes, you will need to use some type of masking service to hide your actual IP address. If you already have a VPN established, it might be possible to use that but most likely you will need to use a web based proxy server or configure your browser to surf through a proxy server.

Examples of web bases proxy servers:

https://proxify.com/
http://anonymouse.org/

If you are using the Firefox browser, the Switchproxy extension will mask your IP address. There are also services which are computer installed such as Hide My IP, for which there is a fee:

http://www.hide-my-ip.com/

With any of these solutions, you may find a degradation of bandwith. It is my experience that some hotels have faster internet connections than others and trying to watch Netflix or even the local news back home may or may not be practical.

I don't know if Portugal is the exception but we were unable to stream anything from Netflix while there.
I was also not able to download any books on my Kindle from Amazon nor was I able to download any audio books from Audible.com
I kept getting the message that because of license agreements downloading was blocked.

I agree with Sarastro, the only way to get the contents is via a VPN solution. I've been in Portugal twice this year and was able to get Netflix and Amazon without a problem using VPN. I don't know if I am allowed to recommend solutions like unblock us or zenok region free, but they offer trials you may check.

For each trip, I am finding more need to use VPN to deal with location sensitive web contents. Some services I use in the U.S. are blocked when the site detects that I am connecting from outside the U.S. One major impact of using the VPN is the slowdown in the data rate. Using CNET speed test, I usually see the download speed reduced to less than 30% when using VPN. This does not matter much for static contents. Audio only contents are usually acceptable. Simple VPN protocol such as PPTP are often blocked by hotels. L2TP does much better. I use SSL VPN on my PC, and so far has tunneled through all hotel routers. PPTP and L2TP-ipsec VPN are natively supported by most operating systems such as iOS and Android. SSL VPN installation and use are more complicated, but it has worked every time.

On an unrelated topic I got my Yahoo Mail blocked after accessing it several times from Portugal. Had to re-enable it using SMS. So having VPN account while traveling may not be a bad idea for things other that Hulu or Netflix.

FYI, it's possible if you are tech inclined (I know many of you aren't) to setup your own VPN service at home, if you have cable or DSL internet. It's not simple for the average person but it can be done, then you pay no monthly fee.

I have a router at home that uses the free DD-WRT firmware. And it has OpenVPN (also free) built into it. I setup the server part on my router (involves creating key files with some free software) and installed the OpenVPN client on my computer using those same key files. Then, when I'm away, I tell my OpenVPN client to connect to my home VPN...and then every website I visit thinks I'm home, even if I'm in Europe.

Yes you will still be able to stream Netflix relatively well from France. It will of course depend on how strong the hotel's Wifi signal is but all you need is a VPN program to do this.

I used this guide http://jordanfried.com/how-to-watch-netflix-in-france/ to setup my connection.

Works great for me in Paris.

Enjoy :)