Random Musings of a ComputerAbuser

This past week I have been playing with Android 2.3 on a HTC HD2 from T-Mobile.  It doesn’t support 3G with Roger Wireless (incompatible frequencies), but it’s still an amazing phone and WiFi still works fine.

One of the apps that I was excited to get is the Netflix streaming app.  It’s been available for iPhone for some time, but it was only last month that Netflix released an app compatible with all 2.2 & 2.3 version Android devices.

To my surprise, I couldn’t find Netflix in the Marketplace.  It turns out that Netflix Canada hasn’t approved the app yet, so if you are able to access it via the Marketplace (using a weblink for example), you will get an error that the app is not available for your region.

Luckily, it is still possible to get it working in Canada if you don’t mind a few extra steps.

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1.  You can manually download the app from XDA here….. (there are several threads if this one gets out dated – simply do a search)

2.  Open the apk to install Netflix (install, but don’t open it yet)

– If you download the apk via your Android browser, it may allow you to install it directly from there.

– If you have downloaded the apk via Computer and have copied the apk to your SD card, use Astro File Manager (available in the Marketplace) to locate the apk on the SD card and open it that way.

3.  Sign up for a free VPN account with VPN Reactor

4.  Configure your Android phone to access the VPN (instructions are here)

5.  Once your free VPN Reactor account is active, connect you phone to the VPN

6.  Open the Netflix app and enter you Netflix Canada login credentials.

– Assuming your are connected to the VPN, you should be able to log in since the App thinks you are located in the US.  If you are not connected to the VPN, you will get an error that your device needs to be updated.

7.  Watch something – it may be slow since you are connecting via VPN, but you only need to do this once.

8.  Assuming it worked, disconnect from the VPN and use the app as normal.

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Once you have used the service from the US (via VPN from Canada), the app no longer checks your location and you are able to use it as you would normally expect to.

I’ve been watching Farscape via Netflix Canada on my HD2 running Android (SD card) and it works perfectly (no problems with audio sync and video quality is great).  It’s possible that this workaround will fail in a future release of the application, but by then hopefully the app will be approved for use with Netflix Canada.

Let me know (via comments) if this worked for you.

ComputerAbuser