News Blocking
Aug 26, 2018, 6:54 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2011
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News Blocking
Currently in London, the link below was blocked both by Project Fi mobile hotspot and Sprint mobile hotspot (they do not overlap). Booted up Witopia VPN using Austin server via project FI and was able to see it. Consider this a thread of news blocking and ways around it. Mods move if I missed an older thread. Ignore if you don't care about news blocking that you can work around. Just for more detail I was using Verisign DNS servers, and I have Blokada and Netguard, no root, on my Moto X4. Those may have caused the issue, but likely not.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/lat...es-homes-shops
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/lat...es-homes-shops
Last edited by boerne; Aug 26, 2018 at 6:57 am Reason: added detail
Aug 26, 2018, 11:53 am
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: San Diego, CA
Programs: GE, Marriott Platinum
Posts: 15,507
Currently in London, the link below was blocked both by Project Fi mobile hotspot and Sprint mobile hotspot (they do not overlap). Booted up Witopia VPN using Austin server via project FI and was able to see it. Consider this a thread of news blocking and ways around it. Mods move if I missed an older thread. Ignore if you don't care about news blocking that you can work around. Just for more detail I was using Verisign DNS servers, and I have Blokada and Netguard, no root, on my Moto X4. Those may have caused the issue, but likely not.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/lat...es-homes-shops
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/lat...es-homes-shops
As for getting around blocks, VPN is probably one's best bet. That's not 100%, however; I've heard of Netflix and similar being able to determine the country you're in even when connected to one.
Aug 26, 2018, 12:10 pm
#3
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Cleveland, OH
Programs: UA-GS 1MM), Hertz Pres Circle, Starriott Titanium)
Posts: 1,966
Currently in London, the link below was blocked both by Project Fi mobile hotspot and Sprint mobile hotspot (they do not overlap). Booted up Witopia VPN using Austin server via project FI and was able to see it. Consider this a thread of news blocking and ways around it. Mods move if I missed an older thread. Ignore if you don't care about news blocking that you can work around. Just for more detail I was using Verisign DNS servers, and I have Blokada and Netguard, no root, on my Moto X4. Those may have caused the issue, but likely not.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/lat...es-homes-shops
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/lat...es-homes-shops
I suspect that Blokada or netguard are the root of the problem. I've never experienced any "blocking" on Fi whilst in London.
Aug 26, 2018, 1:58 pm
#4
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: San Francisco/Sydney
Programs: UA 1K/MM, Hilton Diamond, Marriott Something, IHG Gold, Hertz PC, Avis PC
Posts: 8,156
Are you able to access other pages on that same website, or is the entire website unavailable?
if it's just that one link, then it's something on your device or the target website that's doing the blocking. The URL is HTTPS, so it's encrypted, which means that nobody other than the two endpoints knows which actual page on the website you're attempting to access, and thus can't selectively block it.
So yeah, my money would be on Blokada and Netguard.
if it's just that one link, then it's something on your device or the target website that's doing the blocking. The URL is HTTPS, so it's encrypted, which means that nobody other than the two endpoints knows which actual page on the website you're attempting to access, and thus can't selectively block it.
So yeah, my money would be on Blokada and Netguard.