I understand that the IT folks and the editorial folks at Flyertalk are like two ships in the night, it is almost amazing that a website trying to target road warriors block VPN access. Their are so many warnings posted around Flyertalk that using public wifi in places like airport lounges is the equivalent of having unprotected sex with strangers on a regular basis. Excuse may crudeness.

Both of my work laptops connect to different VPN’s by default.

100% agree. When staying at hotels (most have open WiFi w/ no password) I effectively have the Kill Switch setting activated, so I'm using VPN all the time I have a connection. It's ridiculous that the only way I can read FT while on the road is to disable the VPN :td:

Actually, I can see why they would block commercial VPN endpoints. The vast majority of DDoS attacks I deal with come from them. If FT gets hit with them often (I know they did in the past), it's easier to just have their CDN block commercial VPN endpoints. I've never seen them prevent access from any enterprise VPNs.

I think there is a management mentality somewhere in the picture that thinks that employers’ VPNs won’t be used for “mischief” by employees and that even when they are that IP blacklisting major employers VPNs is “unfair” to the other employees even if there are some troublemakers coming that way.

Pro-corporate and pro-big employer bias? I am shocked! Not.

Depends on the CDN (if there is one) and VPNs. The expectation would be that if it's a corporate VPN, a DDoS will get flagged and dealt with (I know I've been flagged for other legitimate but suspicious activities by corporate security). But a commercial VPN can be anyone. You don't know how often I've had to tell someone... the ASN for X is a known commercial VPN provider..."

"can I stop it?"
"Other than asking your CDN to filter the VPN provider, nope"
"filter the VPN provider"

Pre-filtering them is the easier way to do it. Then you don't have to worry about it. Unfortunately since 90% of businesses out there are small mom and pop operations which can't (or don't know how to) afford a VPN, they move to the commercial ones and get caught in the middle of this. I use them too when it fits what I need to do. I've been caught up with some of the other sites who use VPN filters before as well.

Anyone stream YouTube TV over VPN from overseas?

I know it's against YouTube TV TOS. Presumably all streaming services bar VPN use as well.

Just curious if they're better at blocking VPN access than other streaming services.

I would only subscribe to YouTube TV if I could use it while overseas.

If you already have a VPN provider with multiple Country exit ports, this should be easy enough to test- first pick a non-North American country and see if you can get in, then pick a US State exit port and see if it still works.

... and while I have a couple of commercial VPNs, one thing I am glad for is I have a VPN running off a residential ISP here in the States, so that no matter where I am, I can be in "Texas", which means my streaming services work on my Fire Sticks and tablets like I'm at home.

Briefly tested YouTube TV via VPN on my iPhone.

Seemed to stream national channels and some recordings fine while connected to a VPN server in a different city than where I was physically located.

I did get prompted with a little map showing my location and giving the YouTube TV app access to my GPS location when I tried to stream one channel.

Maybe it was a local channel.

Or maybe YouTube TV doesn't register a location change right away?

If the app demands location services using GPS all the time on iPad or iPhone, I guess that would kill using a VPN to stream YouTube TV.

Not necessarily. GPS isn't always available or accurate. Being indoors doesn't always mean you'll have a signal. It might be a simple thing, but it doesn't define it. If GPS is not available, it might fall over to something else.

I frequently use YouTube TV when traveling and my son uses a stream at college over 1300 miles away. YTTV uses the IP gateway for the steam request to determine location for the local channels. In my experience local channels restrict some content but not all such as NFL games or when YTTV has a local channel blackout.

YTTV has the option to add emails for additional accounts. My son using 1 of our 3 streams doesn’t violate the T&C.

This. If your primary goal is getting around streaming location restrictions, tunneling thru a residential IP is the way to go. I use WireGuard and it’s super fast. Added bene is that if I need something off my local network I can easily get it.

Ive also used quite a few commercial VPNs. Many of their endpoints are “known VPNs” by providers and get blocked by default (some even by FT which is super annoying). Often it’s as easy as just changing the endpoint until you find one that isn’t blocked, but it’s a game of whack a mole. Never have that issue when using my home network as an endpoint.

I also setup a OpenVPN VPN thru our house for my cousin in the USAF to use while he’s overseas. He said it works great. (Long story on why I don’t just use WireGuard for him).

Agreed - I have a Raspberry PI with PI-VPN for the Wireguard VPN server. Takes 10 minutes to set up and configure.

What are you running Wireguard on, a linux box?

Or are there routers which will run Wineguard server? Mine only runs a OpenVPN server.

There are many.

Regards