VPN, why does Vodafone block them?

[NikkiJas]

I’ve seen several websites mention the advantages of setting up a VPN. Some even give you the top 10. Approx 6-8 weeks ago I tried clicking on the links to the VON website but they were blocked. Discussions with Vodafone seemed to unblock approx half of the top 10 recommended VPN companies. This week, back to square one, all VPN websites are blocked. Why are Vodafone blocking such website when many technical website suggest them for improved security? 

[HardySmifff]

I've just had the same issue and made an official complaint to Vodafone which resulted in someone from the Director's office calling me today.

He didn't even know the answer either so he went away leaving me on hold and came back after 5 mins to say this.

All VPN websites (not the VPNs themselves) are blocked by default as part of their age restriction policy to prevent under 18s accessing age-restricted websites.

Yes I know that is rubbish cos the VPN website doesn't itself give access to age-restricted content.

So being 64 years old I said "Then why am I restricted cos you have my date of birth on the account?" and the reply was that it applies to everyone regardless of being under 18 or over 18 Vodafone's age restriction policy is applied by default.

The only way around this is for the Vodafone Account Holder to personally contact Vodafone Customer Service and request that the default under 18 age restrictions be turned off on that account.

I then instantly requested that that be done and that's what he did and all VPN websites are now open to me on my account and so is every other age-restricted site that was previously blocked to me!

Hopefully, this clarifies this issue for everyone but it still raises more questions like why the hell am I at 64 having age-restricted sites blocked by default on my account?

[Jayach]

You don't need to do any of that if you just don't use Vodafone's DNS as stated many times in this thread.

[HardySmifff]

@Jayach

I expect that you are probably some smart whizz kid who knows way more about modern tech than I ever have a hope of knowing in the limited life span that I have left to me but I don't know if you happened to notice that the title of this thread is "VPN, why does Vodafone block them?" which is a question that no-one in any of the replies had actually answered.

I was trying to find out the same answer myself and I came across this thread and actually read the question and as I have today found out the answer to the question "VPN, why does Vodafone block them?" I thought I would kindly share it with the person who asked the original question to give some closure to that question and NOT some technical workaround that 99% of the public who use Vodafone may not really need, want or even understand.

My 40 years of experience as an Electronic and Communications System Engineer at International, Diplomatic, Governmental and Military levels for The UK, NATO and the United Nations have taught me that generally speaking people like to get the answer to the question that they have asked and NOT a workaround from some hypothetical extrapolation of that question.

You are perfectly correct in what you have written but it did NOT answer the question that is the thread Title heading!

[Jayach]

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@HardySmifff wrote:

@Jayach

I expect that you are probably some smart whizz kid who knows way more about modern tech than I

My 40 years of experience as an Electronic and Communications System Engineer at International, Diplomatic, Governmental and Military levels for The UK, NATO and the United Nations have taught me that generally speaking people like to get the answer to the question that they have asked and NOT a workaround from some hypothetical extrapolation of that question.

You are perfectly correct in what you have written but it did NOT answer the question that is the thread Title heading!

Lol, I'm 71, so not exactly a whizz kid, and the question asked over a year ago was "VPN, why does Vodafone block them?" and the answer is they don't. 

All you have added is that Vodafone's content blocking will blocks sites that they consider to have adult content.

There is no need to ring them, they provide the means to turn it off if you don't want it.

How do I change my age-restricted content settings? (vodafone.co.uk)

I also gave that as the first answer on this thread, over a year ago.

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Other-broadband-queries/VPN-why-does-Vodafone-block-them/m-p/2667853...

[HardySmifff]

@Jayach

Thanks "Old man" but you're still a Smart Whizz Kid compared to me as I'm old school system comms and not modern digital tech.

To be honest, there's a lot of the new digital stuff I just can't get my head around and can't seem to get up to speed on.

However, my age-restricted settings were set to off and all VPN websites were still unavailable which is why I contacted Vodafone to ask why I couldn't access my VPN user account controls with my VPN provider because my VPN provider had told me my ISP was blocking access to their website.

The Director's Office Support agent told me today that despite me having turned off the age-restricted websites that the VPN websites were still blocked as a matter of course unless I, being the account holder, contacted support/customer service and requested that the default blocking of websites that it was considered were necessary to block by Vodafone, to protect under 18s from accessing restricted content, be unblocked.

He then proceeded to unblock them for me and 1 minute later I was able to access all the sites like CyberGhost.com, Keepsolid.com and the Opera browser built-in VPN was also working where previous to my conversation with the Director's Office support agent none of them were available.

He had originally stated exactly the same as what you said about turning off the age restrictions in the content controls however after I had told him mine were already turned off he had gone away and when he came back he stated that he had learned that Vodafone are blocking the VPN websites for that very purpose above and beyond what the content control age restriction button controlled and that he himself had not known that, despite him having worked in broadband with Vodafone for a very long time and that people had to specifically request the extra default age-restricted blocking to be turned off.

So it seems there is a lot of misunderstanding and misconception going around not just with the customers but also within the Vodafone customer service and Vodafone tech support about this too!

Anyway, I'm sorted now and I just wanted to share the answers I had received with the people asking why.

Thanks for your input about the DNS though as it was something I didn't know about either.

All the best to you Mr Smart Whizz Kid

[Jayach]

I am surprised that VPN websites are still blocked, even if the content controls are turned off. It seem very strange.

As I have set my DNS servers to Cloudflare and Google (1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8) I never notice any blocking at all.

I wasn't trying to say you were wrong about calling Vodafone to get the blocking removed, I just thought it would be easier to change the DNS servers or use the content controls, as calling Vodafone is rarely a pleasant experience.

Anyway welcome to the forum, any input you (or anyone else) has is always welcome.

[Anonymous]

Vodafone's DNS servers seem much more stable now than they were a year ago.  So much so that I use them with the "malicious sites" content control set to on - in parallel with the equivalents from Cloudflare and Quad9.

I'm now at the point where I have the pre-sets for 5 different VPNs in my 3rd party router (only one of which is something I pay for).  And regards the sites that were proving troublesome to access, no problems here at all!

[Jayach]

Thanks @KeithAlger, I reverted to Vodafone's DNS and sure enough the VPN sites were blocked (I have my content controls for Ultra Safe). I turned off the content controls and the sites were then available again, which is what I would expect, but it seems to conflict with what @HardySmifff found. (and what the Vodafone manager says, but I've learned to never trust anything Vodafone says over the phone.)

[HardySmifff]

I could of course have completely misheard what was said.

A bit like the message from the World War One trenches that started off as "We're going to advance. Send reinforcements!" that ended up arriving at the Headquarters as "We're going to a dance. Send 3 and 4 pence!"