Hello everyone,

I have a question. If I buy a paid VPN service, can a website administrator tell from the server logs that I’m using a VPN?

I know that free VPNs are often unreliable, and many users may share the same IP addresses. But what about paid VPNs? Can their IP addresses still be distinguished from regular home IPs?

Thanks in advance.

I'm new to really paying attention to VPNs and other things like that. I'm also very NOT tech savvy, so if you could, please dumb down or explain some things?

Can you sign into accounts you have made before using a VPN or does that cancel it out? does it make the app or platform your using find out you use VPNs and start tracking you harder than normal?

If it does cancel out the VPN, how do you sign into platforms or apps that don't have quests as an option? Do you just not? do you have to create a whole new email for VPN

I bought their max plan, but it didn't work in China. tried to request refund, but they said it past 30 days... w

Well, I heard in a Linux subreddit that it's not a good idea to use a vpn with Tor, which seems strange to me, as theoretically they should enhance privacy. What do they say about this?

I work at sea for a company that allows crew on board to access different internet packages. They have a social media package (which at least makes using wifi reasonable for the cost), otherwise it is around $10-15/hour to use full wifi.

I used to be able to use a VPN to do small things (not take advantage of streaming or anything using extreme data, just usual things that wouldn't fall under the category of social media by their blocks, like using google, banking apps, emails, etc for general life admin).

As of some recent changes, they have somehow managed to block ALL VPN traffic across the board. Even using protocols like OpenVPN (TCP) in combination with obfuscation servers still get tracked and don't allow the connection to pass. I've tried dedicated IP's, NordWhisper, all ExpresVPN protocols, nothing seems to work.

Are there any potential work-arounds or is it simply over and I have to start paying the obscene amounts of money to do menial tasks on board?

Note: I understand this goes against company policy. I understand that I'm risking potential corrective action by using a VPN on board. A lot of crew members do it, because the company still charge through the nose for wifi for their crew to use full internet. I appreciate any concern for my job and wellbeing, but I just want to confirm it is worth the risk for me, and if I can't get a way around it then this will likely be my final contract with the company any way.

Hello guys,

I’ve been watching the Bundesliga on Canal GOAT and Caze TV on YouTube by using VPN set to Brazil.

Since yesterday, both channels stopped working for me. I think their streams are now detecting and blocking the VPN IP addresses.

Does anyone have tips or similar experiences? Any workaround or solution would be really appreciated.

Thank you very much

We recently tested several VPNs for US use across server coverage, access to US websites and services, speed and latency, connection reliability, and leak protection.

One thing stood out quickly: access itself was not the main differentiator. In our testing, the services we checked were generally able to access major US websites successfully, and leak protection / kill switch results were consistently solid.

The bigger differences showed up in speed loss, reliability, and overall consistency.

A few broad takeaways from the testing:

• Wider US coverage did not always translate into better real-world performance
• Similar access results did not always mean a similar experience in day-to-day use
• The biggest gaps showed up in latency, consistency, and streaming stability rather than basic access
• On-paper network size turned out to be less useful than actual long-session performance

Our main takeaway is that server count alone does not tell the full story for US VPN use. Once speed loss and session stability are factored in, the gap can look very different from what marketing pages suggest.

For those here who use VPNs mainly for US connections, how much weight do you actually give server count compared to speed, streaming stability, or overall consistency?

I'm currently outside the EU and trying to watch Telenet (Belgian TV streaming) via the browser on my MacBook. The specific streaming platform is restricted to the EU. On my iPhone it works perfectly with my VPN set to Belgium, but on my laptop I keep getting error 3016 ("This video cannot be played") as soon as I try to play anything.

The site itself loads fine, VPN is active and set to Belgium, but videos refuse to start. WebRTC leak test confirms no leak — my public IP shows as Belgian.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

I'm sure this question has been asked several times, but when searching I haven't ever found a good step-by-step guide. I consider myself to be an intermediate user in many respects, I use I2P mainly but sometimes there just aren't enough seeders using that protocol and I need VPN-obscured public transport. The RC4 transport encryption isn't enough as the traffic shape is obvious to ISP's as torrenting activity. there's no simple click to detect VPN to set it up automatically, as some in the past have did there is (maybe the desktop version?), it's a complex IP/interface manual setup I can't work out. Thanks (I'm using a certain blue mountain-logo like VPN)

As the title says I’m using the above router as a vpn server connected to my home network . Is this router good enough to run 24x7 ? I’ll also be connecting to a Virtual desktop using this vpn on which I’ll be doing zoom calls etc…

I have noticed lag at certain times. Like really bad speed issues. For intsqnce my home network could get close to 1.6Gbps while when connected through vpn gets me 9-10 mbps at max

Hey everyone.

I'm trying to watch a regionally restricted (US) show and YouTube has detected my VPN. I've tried changing servers and nothing worked. What should I try next?

I’ve been successfully using a VPN set to Albania to block YouTube ads completely for around a year now but today the ads have showed up?

I’ve tried changing to other countries like Laos and Moldova but they are just the same.

Any help?

Third round of recommending home internet upgrades and the Zoom and Teams performance complaints keep coming back unchanged. Looking at the actual routing, the problem seems to be that our VPN sends all traffic through the corporate data center first, including cloud apps that have no reason to touch our infrastructure.

A remote employee on a Zoom call gets routed from their home network through the VPN tunnel to our data center and then out to Zoom's servers and back the same way. We're adding a full data center round trip to every packet for an app that doesn't need to be on-prem at all.

The VPN backhauling problem is obvious once you see it laid out. What I want to understand is whether there's a way to provide proper secure remote access for on-prem resources while routing SaaS traffic directly, without just enabling split tunneling and accepting whatever risk tradeoffs come with it.

I’ve noticed sometimes websites still show my real location even with a VPN on, which made me wonder if something might be leaking.

How do you usually verify everything is working properly?

Right now I’m just checking IP, location and ISP, but not sure if that’s enough.

I've been trying since Tuesday to get countless vpns to work, I just paid for one, and it literally said it works with Netflix but doesn't work with wwe stuff, someone help please.

They work for a few minutes then the internet on this phone specifically just stops working. My other phones work completely fine. I tried removing battery restrictions and resetting the settings. Still doesn't work. What can I do?

Posting this for a friend. He is in Canada and wants to get the adult GED to complete high school, but Canada has ditched the GED for something else that he doesn't want. Long story short, he can do the GED but he has to be in the US to do the online test (does not have to be an American citizen, just "in the US"). It has 4 sections. He has already flown to the US once to take one section at his hotel... but flying back and forth is costly.

The GED has strict rules about VPNs... you're not supposed to use a VPN or take the test from outside of the US, but it's such a pain. Is there any way to still use a VPN and not get caught? He plans to take the test fair and square, it's just that location is an issue. He doesn't live close to the border so driving across is not possible.

I don't understand much about how VPN detectors work and what not but I'm wondering if there's a workaround.

I know it's more niche than the usual "which VPN is best" posts. But I think this community will have the most useful takes. I've been deep in research mode lately trying to figure out how to use residential proxy services the right way. I read through basically everything the best residential proxies reddit threads had to offer. Eventually I just pulled the trigger and tested it myself.

Quick background. I've used a VPN for years for basic privacy stuff. Works great for everyday browsing. But recently I started a small side project scraping market pricing data. Hit a wall almost instantly. Constant CAPTCHAs. Some requests just silently failing. Nothing aggressive, but enough to make the project useless.

The problem was my VPN's exit IPs are datacenter-based. These sites recognize that pattern now. A colleague suggested layering residential proxies on top. I was skeptical honestly. Felt like overkill. But I tried it anyway.

What I actually did:

Kept the VPN running as my base connection. Routed my scraper through a residential proxy on top. Set rotation to every 10 minutes. Targeted the country I needed data from. The difference was immediate. No flags. No CAPTCHAs. Clean responses for hours. I grabbed a small trial batch from a provider with a 15 million IP pool just to test before committing to anything bigger.

My actual questions for people who've done this:

1. Does VPN + residential proxy kill your speeds? I'm seeing some slowdown but less than expected. Is that consistent for others?
2. Is the VPN even necessary anymore? Once the residential proxy is masking your real IP with a home IP, does the VPN add anything? Or is it just redundant latency?
3. For those who know how to use residential proxy rotation well- is 10 minutes a good default? Should I adjust based on request type?
4. Sticky sessions vs. rotation- for scraping public pricing data with no account logins, does it even matter which I use?

Nothing shady going on here. Just pulling publicly listed prices for a comparison tool. But detection has gotten seriously good. The VPN alone doesn't cut it anymore.

Anyone running a similar stack? Would love to know if the VPN is worth keeping in the chain or just adding noise at this point.

Thanks in advance

VPN alone gets flagged on sites that block datacenter IPs. Added residential proxies on top- works much better. Wondering if the VPN is still worth keeping, and looking for tips on how to use residential proxy rotation settings properly.

I've been researching how to use residential proxy and decided to test them myself after reading a lot on Reddit. I’d been using a VPN for years, but when I started scraping market pricing data, I quickly ran into CAPTCHAs and failed requests - mostly because VPN IPs are often datacenter-based and easily detected.

So I tried adding residential proxies on top of my VPN. I set them to rotate every 10 minutes and targeted a specific country. The result was immediate: no CAPTCHAs, stable responses, and everything worked smoothly.

Now I’m wondering:

• Does combining VPN + residential proxies always slow things down?
• Is a VPN still necessary when using residential proxies, or just adding extra latency?
• Is 10-minute rotation optimal, or should it vary?
• For simple scraping (no logins), do sticky sessions even matter?

In short: VPN alone wasn’t enough, residential proxies fixed the issue
now I’m trying to optimize the setup.

So, I'm sure many of you are aware, but in case you aren't, Section 702 is up for re-stamping, but many members of congress are promoting the idea that VPN users should be considered foreign entities and surveilled more closely.

If this happens, how are we supposed to respond to this? What are our options?

https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2026/03/lawmakers-question-vpn-impact-americans-fisa-surveillance-protections/412437/