Welcome to Evil Week, our annual dive into all the slightly sketchy hacks we’d usually refrain from recommending. Want to weasel your way into free drinks, play elaborate mind games, or, er, launder some money? We’ve got all the info you need to be successfully unsavory.
It’s frustrating when you discover the show or movie you want to watch is available on a service you subscribe to, but only in another country or region, especially when the official solution is to subscribe to another service instead. That’s where a VPN comes in.
Maybe you already subscribe to Netflix and want to watch The Office in the US, but don’t want to pay for NBC’s Peacock streaming app. Instead, you could use a VPN to hide your location and appear as if you’re watching from Canada, where The Office is still available on Netflix. While you can also use a VPN and a BitTorrent client to pirate movies, we won’t be covering that in this post. This is evil week, not illegal week.
Pick a VPN
The most important step is to get a VPN. If you already have a reliable VPN, then great! You’re most of the way done. For those who don’t, we can help. While we have an in-depth guide on finding a trustworthy VPN, the simplest guidelines are:
Pick a paid VPN. Do not use free VPNs. They’re either ad-bloated scams, dangerous malware, or simply unreliable and unable to keep you safe.
Make sure it’s a no-log VPN based in a country or region that does not give government agencies access to their data.
The VPN should allow you to select proxy servers in the country or region(s) you want to watch exclusive content in.
(Optional) If you plan to watch on mobile devices, make sure the VPN offers a smartphone app.
These are the bare minimum requirements of a decent VPN. There are additional features and requirements we would suggest if you’re after the highest possible security and anonymity with your VPN—such as connection kill switches and high-level connection encryption—but any VPN that meets the above criteria is enough for watching free movies and TV via streaming sites.
Find something to watch
Speaking of streaming sites—once you have a VPN installed and ready, the next step is to find stuff to watch.
If you’re already subscribed to services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, etc., you can use your VPN to access content available to other regions through those apps. However, since the whole point is to find and watch free content with a VPN, we would only suggest signing up for a paid streaming service if you’re trying to watch content that’s exclusive to a specific app. Otherwise, there are several streaming apps and websites that are entirely free—or at least offer a free tier with ad support—such as:
To see what region-specific content is available from these streaming services, first make sure your VPN is enabled, then check the connection location is set to the country whose content you want to access. It’ll differ between VPN apps, but it’s usually a simple toggle or selection from the VPN’s main menu. Check your VPN’s FAQs if you can’t find the right setting.
With your VPN turned on and your proxy connection set, you can now open one of the above streaming websites in your web browser of choice, then scroll through the library until you find something you want to watch—or swap to a different connection location to see what’s available in other regions, too. It’s really that simple, and you can do it with any streaming service you want.