How To Legally Watch ‘Fear The Walking Dead’ In Australia


UPDATE: Foxtel announced after the release of this article that they would be screening Fear The Walking Dead on their cable service. You can find out more information about this here.

For television fans in Australia, one of the biggest frustrations always comes with the arrival of a new TV show that it isn’t broadcast locally in a timely fashion. With AMC’s latest zombies series, Fear the Walking Dead, this certainly appears to be the case with no Australian network yet laying claim to broadcast rights to the program when contacted. Not even Foxtel, the cable provider that supplies Australians with the latest episodes of AMC’s sister program The Walking Dead, seems overly interested. Yet, some Australian media outlets are still promoting Fear the Walking Dead.

So how can Australians watch Fear the Walking Dead without illegally downloading the content?

AMC Fear The Walking Dead content not available in Australia

Hulu

Hulu is likely to be the easiest way for Australians to watch Fear the Walking Dead. However, accessing the site may be a little tricky. Hulu is set up for U.S. users only. To watch Fear the Walking Dead, Australians will need to set up an account after “tricking” Hulu into thinking they are a U.S. citizen. There are two main ways to do this: access a VPN or unblock your geographical location, both of which are explained below.

  • Set up a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

A Virtual Private Network, or VPN, allows Australian users to look like they are American while they surf the internet and watching content such as Fear the Walking Dead. A secure network is created and users can then access content that is usually blocked from Australian audiences. PC World provides a list of reliable VPN providers that range in price from $4.99 to $19.99 a month. You can read their list here. One thing to be aware of while using a VPN is that while the service is usually secure, that security can stop at any website that is HTTP as opposed to HTTPS. While it may be okay to watch YouTube videos on HTTP, be aware of exchanging confidential information via websites that are not HTTPS.

The main disadvantage with using a VPN service though is that for Australians, it may cause viewing problems with local sites such as iView. Adam Turner from the Sydney Morning Herald offers some great advice to circumnavigate your way around local vs. U.S. content while using a VPN.

  • Unblock your Geographical Location

AMC Fear The Walking Dead content not available in Australia Getflix

A geo block is the “practice of restricting access to content based upon the user’s geographical location.” The most common way to remove your geo block to watch Fear the Walking Dead is to use a service like Getflix, which will block your geographical location for a small yearly fee. This will allow a user to access such sites as the U.S. version of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and HBO Go. Australian users can then set up accounts with the providers they require. Usually a U.S. address is required but not checked, and Getflix suggests googling a public address such as a shopping mall to use as the set up account address.

However, HBO appears to be cracking down on the use of services such as Getflix with their HBO Now service being restricted to users who access their content via services such as Getflix, Unlock.us and Unotelly. HBO recently sent out emails to Australian users who accessed their HBO Now service and informed them that “the HBO Now streaming service is only available to residents of the United States, for use within the United States. Any other access is prohibited by our Terms of Use.” So HBO may be a service Australian users can only access via Foxtel in the future.

Another option that is easy but is losing favor is to use a Chrome extension. Hola used to be an excellent way to view U.S. content on a PC in Australia. The extension is completely free and once installed to Chrome, a user could switch between different regions across the world. Accessing the U.S. version of Netflix was as easy as changing the country and then refreshing your browser. However, Hola has started “selling the bandwidth of Hola users to anyone with money to buy, effectively turning its users into a botnet for hire,” so it is no longer an option to consider. To find out more information on why it is not advisable to use Hola to view Fear the Walking Dead, check out this article from Life Hacker.

Disclaimer: This article is intended as advice only. Please read up on all aspects thoroughly before deciding to proceed. While these services are considered legal at best and not policed at worst, in some areas and countries, the ramifications of using services to view content outside of your country is a legal grey area. Please consider your own country and their legal restrictions in relation to using these services to access content.

Fear the Walking Dead will premiere on Sunday August 23, 2015 on AMC after the conclusion of The Walking Dead marathon.

[Image credits: screen captures / AMC / Getflix]

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