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

  • archchan@lemmy.ml
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    3 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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      2 days 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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        2 days ago

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

  • UltraBudgieZero@lemmy.ca
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    3 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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    3 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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      3 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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      3 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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    3 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).

    • timmytbt@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Depends in the VPN. I’m having to use multi-hop now with Freetube but with that turned on it is working consistently for me again.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
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    3 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.

  • Retropunk64@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    I watch YouTube all the time over Mullvad. It doesn’t let me watch on the website without signing in tho.

    • kusivittula@sopuli.xyz
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      3 days ago

      it’s an absolute pain in the ass with mullvad. only a few servers like ireland, greece and nigeria work.

      • Retropunk64@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        Huh, I’ll keep that in mind. Usually I just say fuck YouTube and go about my business. 😂

    • NeatoBuilds@lemmy.today
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      3 days ago

      I got that same prompt in my house ip now, can’t use youtube on my TV or anything, I guess it detected my plex server downloading videos since I usually watch from there

      • Retropunk64@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        I use Proton for email. Don’t love the CEOs opinions, so not really interesting in expanding their services. Sticking with the email for now, but we’ll see what the future holds.

  • NGC2346@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    I dont understand why this happens to people along with “adblocker detected” and i’ve never had any of these issues on VPN with adblocks… is this something proper to the US or something ?

    • Psythik@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      Don’t have this issue in the US. I blame crappy adblockers/VPNs. UBlock Origin and Mullvad are what you need. Adguard DNS for apps that don’t have extension support.