How to Watch Shameless Online with a VPN

Shameless, starring William H Macy and Emily Rossum, has finished its last and final season on April 2021. With over 100 episodes, there is plenty for those who have not yet seen the show to binge-watch.

Shameless follows the fortunes of the large, down-at-heel family of six children, governed by wastrel single dad, Frank Gallagher. The youngsters raise themselves due to Frank’s chronic alcoholism, with the eldest daughter, Fiona taking on the bulk of parenting duties.

The plot and scripts for the gritty comedy were adapted from the successful British TV series of the same name. That version of the black comedy also ran for 11 seasons and concluded in May 2013. And had a total of 139 episodes.

Watch Shameless online

Shameless has stayed on Showtime for the entirety of its existence. The network has eight channels and is owned by ViacomCBS. Showtime has a total of eight channels, which are broadcast over cable TV systems. Shameless is available on the flagship Showtime channel, which is just called Showtime. The channel is subscribed to by 29.7 million households in the United States. Shameless is the network’s longest-running original series and its gritty plotlines frequently draw free publicity to the network.

Showtime makes Shameless available for viewing online. Unlike most cable-TV channels, access to the Showtime streaming service is not restricted to those who subscribe to the channel at home on a cable TV channel. It is possible to subscribe to the online series and that gives viewers access to many other Showtime entertainment. So, Showtime also operates as a sort of Netflix service.

There is one problem with the Showtime video streaming service. It can only be subscribed to by people in the USA. So, if you don’t live in America, you will have to find other ways to access Shameless online. If you are in the USA and take out a subscription to Shameless, you are able to access it from anywhere. So, you can watch the show on a mobile device as you travel on public transport or in your hotel room, or on the beach while on vacation. You are not tied to watching the Showtime online streaming service while located at one address. However, you won’t be able to access the service if you travel abroad.

The Showtime channel and all of its content, including Shameless, can be subscribed to as an add-on service on Amazon Prime and Hulu. It can be accessed through Apple TV, a Roku box, Fubo, Sling TV, and YouTube TV. In all of these cases, the Showtime channel is a subscription service and none of these services will work if you travel abroad.

Where else to watch Shameless online

If you have a Netflix subscription, you do not need to take out an additional subscription to Showtime in order to watch Shameless. All of the seasons of Shameless are available on Netflix in the USA.

A problem with accessing Shameless online through Netflix is that this service also only applies if you are in the USA. When you travel abroad, you can still watch Netflix, but you will get the video library for the country that you are in and not the USA. Netflix doesn’t have the rights to show Shameless in every country, so, depending on where you go, you might find that Shameless disappears from the menu.

Shameless is available in the Netflix library for Canada. You will also find the UK version over there, so that gives you the interesting option of comparing each version episode by episode. The US Shameless is also available in the Netflix libraries for Australia, Denmark, and Finland.

If you don’t have a Netflix subscription but you do have a Showtime subscription, you can get around the location access blocks while you are abroad by appearing to be in the USA when you access the video streaming service.

When customers try to access videos on Showtime, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or any of the other US streaming services that carry Shameless, the video server looks up the IP address that the address came from. Every device connected to the internet has to have a unique address – the addressing system for the internet is called the IP address. Any IP address can be referenced to a physical location. You don’t get the IP address welded into your device; it is allocated by the internet service provider when you connect to the internet. So, even if you take your laptop with you from the USA, you don’t take your home IP address with you. That’s how Showtime knows you are abroad.

The VPN masks your true location and it presents all of the requests from your device to web services like Showtime from its own address. When the video stream gets sent back, the VPN forwards it onto your device. The VPN is a pass-through service, which, in internet parlance, is called a proxy.

VPNs offer membership by subscription and most of the companies that operate them run servers in several countries. You have to pick a server when you turn on the VPN, so to appear to be in the USA, you just have to make sure you pick a server in the USA.

How to stream Shameless on Showtime outside the USA with a VPN

There are many VPN services operating right now and most of them are too slow to stream video overseas. Showtime technicians know about VPNs and they have built access control systems that block requests that run through VPNs. Very few VPN services can trick these detection systems and you will waste a lot of time and money finding them. However, we have put together a list of the best VPNs that will get you into Showtime so you can watch Shameless from outside the USA.

Best VPNs for Shameless

ExpressVPN

Our top pick!

• Always evades internet control in the PRC
• Keeps ahead of the Netflix VPN detection algorithm
• Benchmark tests show excellent speed

Check best price ExpressVPN Review

Surfshark

• Smart DNS service, understands the technology
• Comprehensive security add-on package.
• No data throughput limits and has a no-logs policy

Check best price Surfshark Review

NordVPN

• More US city locations than its rivals
• Includes malware protection
• No-logs policy

Check best price NordVPN Review

CyberGhost

• Precise locations
• Very large VPN server network
• Offers a 45-day money-back guarantee

Check best price CyberGhost Review