My ISP has started throttling YouTube to ~2mbps when viewed from desktop. Using a VPN gets around this and lets me watch in HD. Luckily I’ve not encountered this error yet, but if I do I guess it’s no more YouTube for me, 480p is just way too blurry to put up with.
Why would your ISP do that?
to save bandwidth
They’re 5g based, so I suspect it’s within the terms of service somewhere that they can limit the streaming quality? Historically I’d only ever noticed deprioritization, never a hard bandwidth limit.
Rip net neutrality
I wonder if there’s any workaround besides VPNs like changing DNS or something?
I use 1.1.1.1 so I don’t think it’s easily ignored by changing DNS. But interestingly while using Revanced and NewPipe on my phone I don’t have any of the same problems. Maybe my computer is ignoring my router’s DNS? Maybe mobile YouTube is delivered from a different server? I wish I knew but ultimately using a VPN still works for me and is a very low effort fix.
What I don’t get is why it’s only YouTube they choose to throttle. I’ve never noticed any issues on other streaming websites and fast.com which literally uses Netflix servers is also full speed.
Phone->revanced
Smart tv->smart tube next
I don’t ever watch YouTube on my laptop but I’m sure there are utilities available.
Revanced is only in android right?
I think so. Only apple product I ever had was an iPod, so I’m extremely unfamiliar with their ecosystem.
I prefer NewPipe to Revanced.
VPNs aren’t hard to detect, especially if you’re using a major service.
100% this, I work in cyber sec and it’s very easy these days for services to detect this.
What about TOR browser?
That’s even easier. The list of exit nodes is public.
That seems like a failure on their part. Buy more exit IPs.
There’s a lot more than just recognizing known raw IP addresses used as endpoints.
One method larger services with CDNs use effectively is to use DNS for blocking. When you try to access a site, your DNS request will resolve to a server close to you, with your location determining the domain resolving to a different IP. Then the platform just responds to those requests from outside their normal area with a consistent message. No need to know whether it’s actually a VPN or not, the traffic is acting like it is and doesn’t really have much of a reason to do that normally.
Feel sorry for the guy in the datacenter using Netflix on his brake.
Must be hard to see all the way down in the foot well.
using Netflix on his brake.
Offering Xzibit some new ideas
Yo dawg, we heard you like Netflix so we put Netflix on yo brakes so when you brake you can watch Netflix, dawg,
Yo, we heard you like watching Netflix on your break, so we put big screen tvs on your brakes so you can watch Netflix on your brakes while on break.
As someone who uses multiple VPNs daily I have a suggestion. Try to locate a different server and connect to it. See if there’s a drop down menu in your VPN app. Sometimes a particular IP on one of those servers flags websites’ fraud detection. Sometimes I can switch servers on my VPN and refresh the page and it loads just fine.
Excellent advice. It’s a game of cat and mouse (or whack-a-mole, whatever metaphor works…).
Sites that want your data for whatever reason hate VPNs, so they identify exit points and blacklist traffic from them. VPN providers know this so they spin up new exit points with different IP.
Just try a different server. Sometimes it’s a regional ’rights’ issue, so pick another server that is in the same jurisdiction, for instance in the case of streaming.
The real highlight is the contradictory text.
To continue, turn off your VPN/Proxy. This will allow YouTube to locate the best content".
“We refuse to serve you anything other than the best ‘located content’.”
A fat lie. Combining refusal with the completely unrelated supposed service improvement of location-based content. To disingenuously sound like they’re doing you a service.
disingenuously sound like they’re doing you a service
That’s the Google guarantee!
“This will allow Youtube to locate the best content” 🤡
It’s so insulting they add flavour text like this as if to call you a fucking moron to your face
“We know what’s best for you”
It seems like most people will believe any technical-seeming message shown to them.
But I don’t want the best content.
I want the old YouTube
Everything detects VPNs. Reddit has an error screen I’ve never seen before about network activity when I use a VPN and I’m not logged in. YouTube refuses to let me watch embedded videos when I’m on my VPN. Many pages simply refuse to load.
Reddit?! Okay, that’s pretty terrible. It’s one thing to have region-locked copyright for stuff, but disallowing VPNs for a web forum? While we don’t need more evidence that they’ve turned heel, that’s an awful big red flag.
Not to defend that shithole, but honestly, it’s probably just to enforce IP based bans.
I have a Tridactyl rule to rewrite YouTube URL to
youtube-local(repository https://github.com/user234683/youtube-local/ ) e.g. https://www.youtube.com/ becomes http://localhost:9999/https://www.youtube.com but as others have suggested, I do my bet to avoid YouTube entirely, because Google is bad, Big Tech is bad.“This will allow YouTube to locate the best content”
They mean slop? Another reason why I still use Newpipe on mobile.
Lol, I guess I wont be watching the latest mr beast mukbang
I’m just going to say it: YouTube really started going to shit when professional, monetized YouTubers started becoming a big thing.
See, there is the problem, if you use a VPN you dont allow Google to locate the best content! Nothing to see here, YouTube is only trying to be helpful here, Google is absolutely not trying to use you as a data nugget to get rich from
They’ve been able to detect commercial VPNs for a long time. They’re just starting to care enough to take some action now.
I rolled my own VPN, no issues. Won’t say how because I got my ass beat for recommending it last time.
Welp.
At least nord has some protcol thing that should be able to avoid it
(edit: it’s called NordWhisper)
No, NordWhisper is for people to connect to the VPN, not for the VPN to connect to youtube. It’s all about what IP’s Google knows are VPN’s. If you’re blocked, switch server or country and try your luck.
Normally if a website asks me to stop using my VPN I just switch to NordWhisper and it’s fixed.
Switching protocols reconnects you to the VPN. Unless you manually select a default server, even reconnecting to the same country is likely to give you a different IP. 🤷♂️
Lately while on VPN I’m able to watch videos and sometime have to solve a captcha to prove I’m not a bot, but if I’m using nothing (at home on WiFi) it’ll ask me to sign in to make sure I’m not a bot 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️… Like wtf
Because there is a lot of traffic from the same IP and the site get suspicious
Yeah, so I understand why I have to solve a captcha when using VPN, but I literally (at times) cannot use YT ‘anonymously’ from my residential IP without signing in to an account.
Usually ISPs don’t give a unique IP to every user but sometimes they give the same IP to more people, so based on what they did it can happend that you may get limited/banned or have to solve many captchas
I love that this complaint is posted to Lemmy: a platform that forces me to pause my VPN to make a comment.
Using Tor right now, no idea what you are talking about… oh right you use that instance.
.world =/= “Lemmy” 😉
Yeah, world is kinda shitty for that
Me: Leave that to me. I know what I want.
