As announced, Netflix wants to prevent geoblocking by blocking proxies and VPNs. After blocking in Australia, the first Netflix customers in Germany are now also reporting difficulties. Fortunately, there are VPN services such as Hola, which still allow access.

We don’t need to discuss how great Netflix is for series and film fans. This also applies to us here in Germany, even though we have to content ourselves with a somewhat reduced program compared to the USA. Generally speaking, in the various countries in which Netflix is available, the offerings differ from each other. You can find a list of provider at unblocknetflix.net/.

• Netflix would like to have globally uniform regulations – but the content providers are reluctant.
• These Netflix partners also don’t like to see Netflix customers bypassing these locks by being able to access the service they want via Smart DNS solutions or VPN solutions, for example in the United States.
• We reported that Netflix wants to eliminate these possibilities and has already become active in isolated cases.

However, this is not yet happening across the board and seems rather half-hearted. The idea behind this might be to signal to the partners.

You see – we are doing something

Netflix is attempting a balancing act, because you don’t just have to serve the content industry, you also don’t want to spoil it with your customers at the same time.

Many people don’t realize that they could be forced into a criminal corner just because they want to see the new House of Cards episodes – after all a Netflix in-house production – in Germany right at the start of the season, or because they want to take advantage of the offer while on holiday abroad.

And even if Netflix is still sporadic with its geo-blocking, it has now also caught the German customers – or at least some of them. Caschy reports on Stadt-Bremerhaven.de on cases in which ZenMate served as a VPN service and in which now only the

German Netflix offer can be accessed

A few weeks ago, we heard from uFlix – one of the services offering access to all regional Netflix offers – that Netflix was getting involved in a cat and mouse game that uFlix would like to play along with:

Netflix is blocking, providers like uFlix are finding a new way. Even if it doesn’t work for everyone via ZenMate from Germany, there are of course plenty of other services that you can try out and where Netflix access still works.

uFlix and also Getflix – both Australian offers – let us know at the moment that you’ve got the blocks under control, or you can bypass the blockade again. Both are subject to a fee, but you can test them for 14 days for free. This makes sense if you really want to try it out, if you want to use this service on a long-term basis – or if you just want to use the usual offer for two weeks on holiday from abroad.

But there are also free offers like Hola’s, which is available as Chrome extension and for Android. You can also book premium access for a fee, but on a peer-to-peer basis you won’t pay a cent, but of course you’ll still get full security. To set up Hola, just a few easy steps are all you need to get back to the Netflix portfolio you’re looking for – or other foreign offers like Hulu, Pandora, Fox or BBC.