I like to watch the Formula1 channel on youtube but I always have to turn off my VPN, I’ve tried multiple cities in the USA (where I live) and other countries abroad, but I always have to disable it just to watch their videos. When it comes to streaming services, Disney+ is one where I have to disable my VPN. Why is this? I would think I can keep it on as it ‘masks’ my actual IP, even if I choose the same city I am actually living in. I even tried different VPNs.
If you go to a website that tells you your IP address, you can often see them listing your IP as a server IP address, a VPN IP address, a public proxy or a residential IP address. These streaming services maintain such a list where your VPN’s IP address is mentioned along with a few thousand others.
The other method that these services use is measuring is automatically monitoring the activity of an IP address. If hundreds to thousands of users are using a service under the same VPN-provided IP address, especially simultaneously, that’s a very noticeable amount of bandwidth usage and connection that can be automatically flagged.
I also imagine basic details about the device would be collected for some services. What one person, or even family, has 500 unique devices to access the same service from, all in different languages, OSes, browsers, and constantly?
If your VPN provider has a dedicated IP service, or a place to select a new protocol, I would try both of those things independently and together. That may fix the issue.
Oh so if those streaming services sees a known VPN IP, it’ll block it?
Can I ask if ISP can do anything with the VPN IPs besides look at them? They can’t use them as a trail/proof for piracy correct? Just learning the ins and outs of basic IP nowadays, as I took my IT courses 10 years ago, wish I paid a bit more attention during networking lol.
This actually makes sense. I never thought about it like this. I always thought everyone got their own IP
I’ll try this out. Thanks!
Generally, yes. It varies from streaming service to streaming service. To bypass this, many VPNs began using residential IP addresses, and that led to Netflix blocking residential IP addresses.
Well, I guess they can contact copyright holders and ask them for a list of copyright infringers and then manually tie it to their customers. But it’s too much of a hassle. If you are concerned, you can run a multi-hop setup. Many VPNs provide this as an option. But I’d recommend using two separate VPNs in two different but nearby locations if you want to do multi-hop. That way, your ISP will see one IP address, and the torrent swarm will see a different IP address.
That’s annoying. I would say what’s the point of VPNs but they do have their uses in other areas of the internet. Thank you so much!
I’ll look into personal VPNs fs. Thanks!