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submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by tatterdemalion@programming.dev to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

AFAICT, if a Netflix account owner sets up a VPN for their household, then anyone sharing the account who routes their Netflix traffic through that VPN would appear to be accessing Netflix from that household's WAN IP address.

Is anyone doing this? Is it really that simple or are there more challenges?

EDIT: We get it, you like torrenting. Let's keep comments on topic folks.

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[-] buckrogers@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 months ago

Not using vpn but using mail filter fwd. Mails from netflix with codes are fwd to all using the shared account. So if you need to reactivate a device you request a device code and get it in the mail.

Yes it works. It really is that simple!

[-] herseycokguzelolacak@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

No, but I use a VPN to download movies from various sites. No reason to pay for Netflix.

[-] popekingjoe@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

This is the way.

[-] Damage@feddit.it 0 points 3 months ago

I have a media server, but I still need Netflix to handle the volume of crap shows my partner watches*


*many actually play in the background while she does something else, but apparently they're necessary

[-] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

Why not just use something like rutracker.org ?

All the netflix releases are on there and vast majority of them can be streamed via bit torrent. Just select language defaults in your media player and you're good to go.

[-] Damage@feddit.it 0 points 3 months ago

Lol do you want to deal with a pissed off wife a the smallest issue? At least Netflix's issues are Netflix's fault

[-] source_of_truth@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Wives vary.

[-] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

EDIT: We get it, you like torrenting. Let's keep comments on topic folks.

To be fair, you posted in the self-hosted community discussing an Issue for proprietary software.

To answer your question, which others have already done, yes your VPN tunnel will share the same IP as your household so long as it’s setup properly.

[-] KarnaSubarna@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 months ago

Just a stupid question - Is self-hosting (and this forum) only applies to open source products?

[-] NotKyloRen@lemmy.zip 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I've done this. I have a Google TV Stick. If Netflix starts preventing people from opening their app when it detects a VPN (in Android), then you can do what I did and run the VPN on the routers themselves. In my case it's ASUS routers on both ends, and they support Wireguard natively (GliNet are also really good for this as they support and run OpenWrt)

The benefit to doing it this way is that neither Netflix nor the Google TV itself are aware they're on a VPN. The ASUS routers I use have a feature called VPN Fusion, where you can put different clients on or off of different VPN connections.

Edit: To clarify, I share with family. I'm not the account owner, but I'm one of the profiles in the account.

[-] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If you have an Android phone you've probably noticed a prompt at some point asking for your permission to transmit precise location information and enable wifi scanning. Every Android phone sends wifi SSIDs and MAC addresses along with its GPS location back to Google. The combination of all that information is almost as unique as a fingerprint. They can use that along with signal strength of each AP in the area to determine your device's location with precision. (Google used to allow apps like Maps to be used with wifi scanning turned off, but no more.)

Your Google stick can't tell it's on a VPN directly, but even without GPS Google can still pinpoint its physical location using their database of SSIDs and MAC addresses, and if they want to they can determine you're using a VPN by comparing that to the expected location of your IP address. There probably aren't enough people doing this right now to make it worth the trouble to detect your VPN, but IMO it's just a matter of time before they decide it is.

I also expect that Google sells that information to every company willing to pay for it, so almost every single wifi enabled device can be precisely located if it can transmit data to the Internet.

We live in a scary time.

[-] Seefoo@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Interesting info. I switched to grapheneos recently, which allows you to disable a lot of that stuff. Combining that with WG, should make a solid way to share

this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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