How to watch Canal+ from wherever you are in the world
Your one-stop guide to watching French streaming service Canal+
Canal+ is a French streaming service that’s in high demand. Offering film titles such as Dune and No Time to Die, TV series such as This Is Us, and a wealth of sporting options (everything from the UEFA Champions League to the NBA), it isn’t difficult to see why.
However, if you’re in the UK then you’ll likely find yourself geo-blocked from the French platform, since the service is only available in France. If users’ IP addresses situate them outside of France, they’ll be prevented from accessing the service.
If you’re a frequent traveller, or looking to gain access to your Canal+ account while outside of France, using a VPN could offer a solution. VPNs, or virtual private networks, encrypt internet traffic and channel it through a secure, private server that could be located anywhere in the world. As such, VPNs are able to make apps and websites believe you’re accessing their services from far-flung parts of the world, rather than from the region you’re actually in.
Read on for our pick of the best VPNs for watching Canal+, no matter where you are in the world.
How to watch Canal+ now: ExpressVPN
If you’re looking to watch Canal+ from outside of France, ExpressVPN is an excellent option. We’ve long sung the praises of ExpressVPN, lauding it for its commendable speeds and user friendliness – which can be a rarity in the VPN world. However, the clincher for us is the service’s stellar security record, which was dubbed “impeccable” in our full-length five-star ExpressVPN review.
ExpressVPN isn’t the cheapest option available, with many a rival undercutting it on price. However, we believe it’s worth paying a few extra pounds for a VPN that was able to access every streaming service we attempted to access. If you’re in the market for premium content – of the type offered by Canal+ – then a premium VPN is definitely in order to maximise utility and enjoyment.
You can snap up an ExpressVPN subscription on a monthly, bi-annual (every six months) or annual basis, although you might want to take advantage of our exclusive ExpressVPN offer, which gets you 15 months of the service for a mere £74.03. That equates to just £4.94 a month – you’ll struggle to find a pint in London for cheaper.
How to watch Canal+ now: NordVPN
Alternatively, if speed is a priority then NordVPN offers a fantastically zippy service. When our testers gave it a go on a Windows 10 laptop (connected to a 200Mbits/sec Virgin fiber line), they achieved an impressive download rate of 170.3Mbits/sec, which is ample for personal use. What’s more, when they switched to a New York-based server, download speeds actually increased, to a whopping 182Mbits/sec. A five-star review ensued.
Another nifty feature of NordVPN is that it supports split-tunnelling on both mobile and desktop devices, allowing you to channel particular apps through the VPN, and others using your device’s usual ISP.
Like ExpressVPN, NordVPN isn’t the cheapest of all the VPN products in the market, but it’s certainly one of the best. Offering excellent security credentials and an independently audited privacy policy to boot, NordVPN is a fantastic way to watch Canal+ from wherever you might be in the world.
Expert Reviews readers can claim our exclusive NordVPN offer, which costs just £65.86 for a two-year plan, but with an extra three months thrown in for free. This brings the price down to just £2.44 per month. In this case, you’ll struggle to find a coffee for less in the capital.