YouTube won’t let me watch this video with my VPN on. Is this a new thing?

  • archchan@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    They’re killing third-party client access, limiting adblockers, blocking VPNs, and forcing sign in more and more. I sincerely hate it but this was inevitable. They have their monopoly, this is just the “abuse that position and enshittify for more data and money” stage. I hope an alternative takes off because I refuse to play by their rules.

    • quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      The day the finally kill adblockers and third party clients I’ll stop watching and I started to think I won’t miss it at all after barely open it in a week.

      • emberpunk@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        Agreed. I hate the direction this is going towards but I’ll just find other avenues.

  • UltraBudgieZero@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    I find if I use my VPN and I’m not logged in, it says I can’t watch unless I log in. If I turn it off, it works. I think if you’re logged in, they can track you and monetize you. If you’re behind a VPN and they also don’t know who you are, they want to push you into telling them who you are.

    What I’ve found as a workaround is to search videos using Duck Duck Go. It has a way you can watch YouTube stuff through DDG without being logged in. I imagine they’ll eventually figure out a way to patch that.

  • Wolfie@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    I use MullvadVPN and i have never encountered this issue before. Hopefully won’t need to either.

    I’ll tell you another weird detail I found out today… A lot if my coworkers had their uBlock terminated by the chrome browser. I use Ubuntu with chromium because reasons and somehow, my uBlock is still active and working o.o it has not been terminated and I still get rid of those nasty YouTube ads.

    • anarcho_vroom@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      I use Mullvad but get a “confirm you’re not a bot by signing in” message occasionally. All I do is switch servers and clear all history/cookies/etc. It works 95% of the time.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 days ago

      I use MullvadVPN and I almost always encounter this issue.

      It probably depends on which server(s) you’re using.

      • Gangly3090@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        It does, I’ve found Albania, Estonia and Nigeria skip the issue at least. If anyone else got server recommendations that work feel free to drop! I should probably clarify that my Mullvad connection is a barebones Wireguard one running on top of Tailscale

        Sometimes the more commonly used servers like UK start working for a few hours/days but that never lasts. The 3 listed are basically bulletproof in my experience though

        And yea, using a frontend will not bypass this. Unless that frontend is an online downloader like Cobalt.tools or amp4.cc. Or Invidious I guess but that… Has its own issues

        This maybe affects Mullvad so strongly cause they never bother hididng/swapping their server IPs and don’t have a particularly large plethora of them unlike competitors?

  • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    It’s ok, YouTube, I don’t need the best content, just give me the okay content, it’s fine.

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    If you are using a Free VPN, the would be A LOT of users using that server, so it looks like a denial of service attack from the server’s POV.

    Even when I used a paid VPN, I still have to try many servers before there is one that works.

    When I used ProtonVPN, it was like 50/50 if it worked or not.

    When I switched to Mullvad and now to IVPN, who have much less servers to choose from, I have to try like 7 servers before I found a working one, and so far it’s been working fine for like the past week.

    Its not a new thing. I’ve noticed it since last year (when I started using VPNs).

    • cobysev@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I’ve been paying for Proton VPN for a couple years now and I’ve never been blocked by YouTube.

      I’m also using uBlock Origin and Firefox as a browser. YouTube takes like 5-10 seconds to load videos, thanks to their built-in delay timer when ads can’t play, but otherwise it works fine.

      Honestly, I’d gladly wait 30 seconds staring at a black screen than watch a 10-second ad. So their delay timer is pointless.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    It’s a relatively new thing. i was watching YT for years with Mullvad with no issues then late last year started getting blocked. Right now I can only watch on either NewPipe or on the official web client while logged in.