#streaming guide

I want to preface this by saying I am SO grateful we get to experience this now. Thank you, Rachel Reid, for giving us Shane and Ilya, and thank you, Crave, for giving this story a chance. Connor and Hudson—thank you for bringing life to these characters.

Being currently based in Southeast Asia, I’ve gotten pretty good at finding ways to watch international releases (I did the same thing when Ari & Dante first came out and was only accessible on US VOD lol).

While I know UAs and other fans are already making strides in making this show accessible to wider audiences (by requesting it on other platforms), there’s a chance that the main place we’ll need to focus on is Crave’s main platform. Hopefully, this guide helps those who want to support the show by streaming it legally. The more support they get, the higher the chances they’ll continue the show, right? (👀 right???)

NOTES:

I am just an individual that stumbled upon a way to support the show LEGALLY. You would still be required to pay for a subscription. Keep in mind, there’s no guarantee everything will run perfectly, even after setting it up. There could still be hiccups or access issues when the show airs. So please only try this if you’re comfortable experimenting a bit and understand that results may vary—it’s working at the moment, but that could change.

While I’m sharing a potential way to access the show on Crave Canada, I hope everyone can also show support by requesting it on other platforms (Heated Rivalry Updates has a guide here!).

Please don’t share the show illegally on other platforms/cloud sharing—the author, creators, and cast deserve all the support for their work. There are still ways to make it more accessible without breaking the bank on multiple subscriptions, so for now we’ll just make do with what we have!

For now, please share this guide privately via DM to avoid any potential VPN-related restrictions (if the platform decides to put blockers). While this method is completely legal (you’re paying for all the tools and subscriptions involved), I’d rather keep it low-key for the time being since we don’t know how Crave handles this type of setup.

UPDATE: As of writing (10/25/25), the VPN I’m using works fine on mobile. My AMEX Card with a US address worked fine as a payment method. For the billing address, I just used a generic Canada address (generator here).

Let’s stream properly guys. Spotify, YouTube, and the other streaming platforms doesn’t count views/streams that they think was done by a bot. Here’s a couple of guidelines to make sure these platforms think you’re really a human streaming Better:

1. Don’t stream/watch repeatedly! Please refrain from using the repeat button. And do not stream Better using a playlist that plays the song in a loop. Space out your streams.

2. Speaking of spacing out your streams, stream 3-4 songs between Better. In YouTube watch 3-4 videos in between. And watch non-Zayn related videos at least once. Watching purely Zayn videos might trigger YouTube to think you’re a bot.

3. Please refrain from using any playlist within the first 24 hours release of Better. Only start streaming/watching videos from a playlist after 24 hours. And once again place Better between 3-4 songs. And please include non-Zayn songs in your playlist.

4. When watching videos on YouTube please refrain from playing it on background. You need to watch the video in full screen with at least 480p resolution every time for it to count. So no playing in tab for pcs and in mobile no split screen and floating windows while playing the video.

5. For those living in the US please stream using a Premium account if possible. There’s a heavier weight assigned from premium account streams on chart computations.

6. For those who bought Better in iTunes and have an Apple Music subscription please delete the song you bought in iTunes afterwards so whenever you stream the song it’s going to be from Apple Music and not from the download you bought.

That’s about it. Let’s make every stream count!

Buy & Stream: iTunes/Apple Music • Spotify • Youtube Music • Deezer • Tidal

Here is our streaming guides:

1. Watch the mv once, then watch a few videos and watch the mv again, otherwise the views wont probably count (change what videos you watch in between, youre acting like a bot)

2. Refrain from making stream playlists at least the first 12 hours

3. If you have youtube premium, it'll be more unlikely for your views to not count

4. No emojis in the comment section, also censor 'views' and 'stream' (for example v13ws and 5tr3am)

5. Turn off autoplay and watch the music video at 480p or higher

This is what ive picked up! Good luck on your streaminggg (っᴖ◡ᴖ)っ

(Please read these too! ↓)

helpful streaming guide from Twitter

made by @/popfactsnews, @/beysholic, and @/swiftsnet