I had previously written an article to explain how to unblock Netflix in Indonesia. Indeed, for several years, Telkom, a government-owned company and one of the largest Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the country (under the brand IndiHome) had blocked Netflix. The official reason was that its content was deemed offensive to Indonesians, but the real motivation was to protect IndiHome's own streaming service called iFlix.
Anyway, I deleted the content of this article entirely since Telkom/IndiHome finally allowed Netflix on its network. I guess it was bad for their reputation and they were losing customers to their competitors.
That said, now that Netflix is finally easy to watch in Indonesia, you will probably be disappointed when you see their catalog. It is quite poor, with few of the movies or series that you may be used to watch back home available.
To solve this problem and to get access to the US catalog of Netflix (or the French, UK, Australian catalogue), all you need to do is to subscribe to a VPN. It isn't free, but still very cheap (under 2$ per month with PureVPN) and extremely useful if you also care about your privacy online. Read about the benefits of using a VPN here: Best VPNs for Indonesia.
PureVPN is the one I prefer, but you can also use another one like VyprVPN. I used both and they were working well with a few differences.
What you have to understand is that Netflix doesn't allow the use of a VPN and it will track down anyone who uses one, by blocking IPs identified as coming from a VPN.
If you are using a VPN, you will get the following message when you start watching a movie:
For this reason, you have to make sure that the VPN you use is sophisticated enough to avoid being detected by Netflix. With PureVPN, I rarely have any issues. From time to time, the VPN is detected, but it only lasts for a short time (in the meantime, you can just connect from the UK/Canada/Australia instead of the US for instance as the catalog is pretty similar in those countries).
Another crucial feature you need is speed, obviously, as you need a rather high bandwidth when streaming videos.
My suggestion is that you use the free trials offered by the VPN companies so you can test how well they work. Both VyprVPN and PureVPN have a 30-day money back guarantee that is just perfect for that.
If you are just visiting Indonesia for a few weeks on a holiday or business trip, it can be smart also to use this 30-day money back guarantee as you'll basically get a free VPN during your stay.
Using PureVPN to stream Netflix US from Indonesia:
This is really easy.
After you've logged in to PureVPN, just choose "Location" and select the country from which you wish to stream Netflix. Click on it and it will connect automatically. That's it! Enjoy!
Using VyprVPN to stream Netflix US from Indonesia:
Things are slightly more complicated with VyprVPN. To make Netflix work perfectly in Indonesia using it (and to avoid being detected by Netflix), you need to modify its settings a little bit. Let me show you below how to to do that properly:
1) Once logged in, go to VyprVPN Preferences (or Customize), and select Protocol:
Make sure you select either IKEv2 256-bit encryption or Chameleon whenever you want to unblock Netflix in Indonesia. The rest of the time, you can select OpenVPN only.
Make sure you select either IKEv2 256-bit encryption or Chameleon whenever you want to unblock Netflix in Indonesia. The rest of the time, you can select OpenVPN only.
2) On the main interface, change your location to any of the servers in the US. Again, if you are not watching Netflix, it is better to select a server in Indonesia or Asia as it will be faster.
Troubleshooting:
- You should now be able to watch Netflix US, just as if you were in your home country. The connection will sometimes drop, so you can solve this problem by simply ticking the button "automatically reconnect" in VyprVPN --> Preferences --> Connection
- Another problem you could be facing is that a server might get temporarily blocked by Netflix. In that case, just try another server. For instance, choose Miami instead of Chicago.
- Another problem you could be facing is that a server might get temporarily blocked by Netflix. In that case, just try another server. For instance, choose Miami instead of Chicago.
The fact that VyprVPN has several US server is an advantage compared to PureVPN as it makes it easier to switch from one server to the other in case one IP gets blocked by Netflix.