Have you ever heard of Hotstar? Tired of missing out on all your favorite Hindi movies? Well… what if I told you that there’s a way to gain access to Bollywood hits on India’s leading streaming service, called Hotstar? This short guide will show you exactly how to watch Hotstar in the USA and everywhere else around the world! Keep reading!
Firstly, understand why Hotstar isn’t available to everyone
For those who haven’t actually heard of Hotstar, it’s a widely recognized streaming service in India, showing all the latest Indian movies, TV Shows, music and live cricket matches! It’s like the Indian version of Netflix.
But, sadly, it’s only available for free to the people of India, and available with limitations to the people living in the UK, Canada, and the US.
By free for the people in India I mean they have access to free content but will have to pay a very small price for premium access to all the libraries. There’s no free content available to anyone elsewhere, and to access the premium and Indian content within the UK, US and Canada, you’re going to have to pay a large sum of money.
So, how’s that fair? And well, for anyone else who’s living out of the above-mentioned countries, you’re in no luck, because Hotstar is blocked off.
But, regardless of its availability or it being blocked off in other countries, there’s still a workaround method. With the help of the top VPN services, you’ll be able to access unlimited Hotstar content in no time!
How to watch Hotstar in the USA and everywhere else for free
When you subscribe to the best VPN, you’ll automatically be paying a tiny amount for the Hotstar service, and more importantly, you’ll be given unrestricted access! Here’s how to get started. You begin with:
- Sign up to a Hotstar VPN, and by that I mean one that includes Indian servers in its list. This is very important because, without the Indian server, you’re not going to be able to make this work. I recommend NordVPN since it has around 27 Indian servers in its list.
- Once signed up, download and install the app on a Hotstar compatible device. For example, Windows, iOS, Android or macOS.
- Launch the app.
- Then connect to any one of the Indian servers.
- Go to Hotstar.com, and watch any Indian movie that’s available for free.
How to access premium Hotstar in the USA or from around the world
If free content isn’t what you’re after, here’s how you can access Hotstar’s premium content with the help of a VPN:
- Open the VPN and connect to an Indian server.
- Go to Hotstar.com and follow through to the payment page.
- Choose any one of the payment plan options, there will be 3, one by the month, one that is yearly and the other that is VIP.
- Then move along to create your account. There’s an option to sign in with your Facebook too.
- Then the 3rd step is choosing a mode of payment via Credit Card, Debit Card, Net Banking, Paytm, and UPI.
Note: Okay, so the only drawback about this is that for the payment and subscription to go smoothly, you’ll have to use an Indian Credit Card or Debit Card to go through with the payment. The reason for that is because the subscription needs to seem authentic. If Hotstar is blocked everywhere else in the world, how is it suddenly going to allow unauthorized payments?
There are a lot of websites where people in India do provide their services for the subscription, but, of course, this is with the addition of a small fee.
Can you use a free VPN for Hotstar?
Absolutely not!
I don’t believe in free VPNs even though there are one or maybe two that are reliable. The thing about free VPNs is that they may seem very inviting, but they’re only going to compensate for the free services in some form or the other. This can be done by stealing your important data and selling it to third party companies.
They also lack basic security measures that a good VPN provides. The distinction between a premium VPN and a free VPN is the fact that a premium one comes with military-grade encryption, has the OpenVPN protocol, has a functional Kill Switch, and offers other advanced features like Split-Tunneling, Malware Protection, DNS and IP leak protection.
These security measures are crucial, especially if you’re trying to access a restricted platform like Hotstar from the US or abroad. Another thing, a free VPN often slows down your connection speeds or throttles with your bandwidth. And, that is just no good for streaming.
To conclude
Hotstar is among many other restricted streaming services in the world and the only way around these geo-blocks is through the services of not only a reliable VPN but a VPN optimized for streaming. It should also incorporate a wide coverage of server locations, so you have more options to choose from for accessing websites other than just Indian Hotstar.