I have written plenty of articles about how you can watch different movies and TV series on Netflix using the VPN services of Surfshark and NordVPN. These are services that can help you modify your IP address, and as that happens, you can also watch material only available on Netflix in other countries. Yesterday, we published an article about how you can stream Top Gun on Netflix in Sweden using SurfsharkVPN. But, what can you do if you have tried and it doesn’t seem to work? Is it something wrong with the VPN? What is causing Surfshark and NordVPN to not work correctly with Netflix on Windows computers?
I have experienced this problem myself. I know what I am talking about. I know that SursfharkVPN is supposed to give access to Netflix content in lots of countries, including the USA, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Japan, Sweden, Italy, and several others. But, whenever I connected to a VPN server in any of these countries, I only saw the “default Netflix content” and not the special content available in the specific countries. What was wrong? Later I tried the same on a Linux computer (with the Ubuntu operating system), and suddenly everything worked properly. That made me suspicious. What is the problem? Why aren’t SurfsharkVPN and NordVPN working correctly in Windows while working perfectly on Linux, FireTVs, Android/iOS systems, and other platforms?
- Learn more about SurfsharkVPN in our Surfshark review.
- Learn more about NordVPN in our NordVPN review.
How to fix the SurfsharkVPN and NordVPN problems in Windows if they do not work with Netflix?
I had the problem, and I was unable to watch geo-blocked Netflix content with both SurfsharkVPN and NordVPN, even though I managed to use the same servers on a Linux system and they gave me access to the Netflix content of that given country. What is the problem?
Turn off your antivirus program (suspend it for some minutes).
This is a very likely reason for this bug to take place. Your antivirus program might work so hard to keep you safe that it will disturb the VPN as you use it to unblock Netflix. If you want to find out if this is the problem for you, open your antivirus program and either suspend it for some minutes or close it entirely. When this is done, close your browser and open it again. You can now try to visit the Netflix website and see whether you get access to the real content or not.
Did this solve your problem? Are you afraid that you will have to delete the antivirus program from your system to make Netflix work properly with NordVPN and SurfsharkVPN? Before you move on, I would suggest the following steps.
Install the browser extensions for NordVPN and SurfsharkVPN.
On my system, the antivirus program (AVG) was the source of the problem. But, I didn’t want to place my system at risk by removing my Antivirus (and malware) protection. That is why I decided to try the browser extensions first, as I hoped that these might be able to override the error since they are running directly within the browser.
It was easy to install the browser extensions for both NordVPN and SurfsharkVPN. Once they were installed I logged in with my credentials and connected to the same server once again (make sure to disconnect from the desktop version of the VPN before you do this).
I was really happy to see that this solved the problem, without me disabling or suspending my antivirus program. In other words, this solved it all.
If you experience this problem without having an antivirus program installed, I still suggest that you try this option, because the browser extensions might solve the problem at hand (even if it is the antivirus software or not).
Use the Netflix application for Windows instead of using your browser.
A third option is to download the Netflix application from the Microsoft Store instead of using the Netflix website for streaming. This might also help you get rid of errors caused by antivirus programs, malware-protectors or by the cache in your browser.
These are the three most important things you can do to make NordVPN and SurfsharkVPN give you access to Netflix in Windows. Here you can find some more pieces of advice that might help you as well!
Some other useful pieces of advice to those who stream Netflix using a VPN.
Here you have some other pieces of advice that might help you unblock Netflix using SurfsharkVPN, NordVPN, and other popular VPN providers (that are able to unblock Netflix with their servers).
- Delete all cache and cookies from your browser (or use a private/incognito window).
- Make sure to be in the right time zone on your Windows computer (set the time zone yourself instead of automatically adjusting it).
Have these instructions helped you? If they have, please write a comment and let us know about it. Should you have any further questions or advice to people suffering from this error, please write a comment and share your wisdom!
