Google search not working with AirVPN

[amires 10]

Hi,

Recently whenever I am connected to an AirVPN server google search does not work and gives out error 403. I tried several servers and most of the them have this problem.
I have attached a screenshot of the error. Is there any way to fix it?

 

[Staff 9744]

@amires

Hello!

It looks like Google Search blocks our VPN servers in Dallas (403: Forbidden). Not a big deal anyway, as Google Search should never be used by anyone. By the way, if you want to use it, you can consider to access it through startpage.com (which will proxy your query and the reply, adding a precious privacy layer), or connect to Google Search from other USA servers (not in Dallas).

One of the favorite, privacy aware search engines here around is https://search.brave.com/ - it's also quite accurate. We are curious to know from everybody their favorite web search engines.

Kind regards
 

[amires 10]

16 minutes ago, Staff said:

@amires

Hello!

It looks like Google Search block our VPN servers in Dallas (403: Forbidden). Not a big deal anyway, as Google Search should never be used by anyone. By the way, if you want to use it, you can consider to access it through startpage.com (which will proxy your query and the reply, adding a precious privacy layer), or connect to Google Search from other USA servers (not in Dallas).

One of the favorite, privacy aware search engines here around is https://search.brave.com/ - it's also quite accurate. We are curious to know from everybody their favorite web search engines.

Kind regards
 

Thank you very much for your reply. Kindly note that this is not limited to Dallas server, it happens with other USA servers as well and some Germany servers too. Sometimes it works at first but after a while I get the error message.
Thank you for search engine suggestions. I hope this blocking by google gets resolved soon.

[DawnTurnage 1]

On 1/18/2023 at 8:57 PM, amires said:

Hi,

Recently whenever I am connected to an AirVPN server google search does not work and gives out error 403. I tried several servers and most of the them have this problem.
I have attached a screenshot of the error. Is there any way to fix it?

 

 

It happened to me sometimes, but if you try it again. You won't face it. Let me know if you resolve it or not.

Edited ... by DawnTurnage

[species8472 3]

i'm having the same issue with several USA servers. I need to be able to search with google in some cases (like for shopping). it's a pain to have to turn off the VPN to do a search. 

[Staff 9744]

8 hours ago, species8472 said:

i'm having the same issue with several USA servers. I need to be able to search with google in some cases (like for shopping). it's a pain to have to turn off the VPN to do a search. 

Use https://www.startpage.com - it will query Google Search and return to you the exact Google Search reply.

Kind regards
 

[nexsteppe 23]

On 1/18/2023 at 12:27 PM, Staff said:

One of the favorite, privacy aware search engines here around is https://search.brave.com/ - it's also quite accurate. We are curious to know from everybody their favorite web search engines.

I mostly use Kagi, nowadays, so now I pay for search just as I pay for my email and VPN.  I don't feel I can trust free search engines any longer—maybe this was always the case, and I was just gullible or dumb before?

I'll confess to actually being satisfied with DuckDuckGo for years, using only using Yandex Images occasionally to fill in that gap.  I still occasionally use DDG's HTML or Lite (no JS) sites on my mobile and in Tor Browser.  But their conduct increasingly bothers me, and I'll admit they've never seemed particularly competent.  Now that DDG's results have become much worse and the engine mostly ignores quoted search keywords ("verbatim" searches) while making ads more prominent and almost visually indistinct from results, it's hard for me to even take them seriously.  I was honestly less bothered by their compromise with Microsoft than I was their lack of transparency about this and other matters before being confronted by journalists.  Screw that.

Startpage has a long history of hostility toward VPN and especially Tor users, and they've never been particularly forthcoming about their relationship with their now owner, System1.  They probably mean well, but I can't help but feel they're not better than DuckDuckGo.

[Tubular 1]

On 2/22/2023 at 6:34 AM, nexsteppe said:

and they've never been particularly forthcoming about their relationship with their now owner, System1.

They've explained the relationship, to my satisfaction, at least, in these three support articles:

https://support.startpageDOTcom/hc/en-us/articles/5194985436948-What-is-Startpage-s-relationship-with-Privacy-One-System1-and-what-does-this-mean-for-my-privacy-protections-

Now if they would just stop treating my searches as "suspicious activity" just because I'm using AirVPN... Although, this isn't happening as often as it did a few months ago.
 

[n41461 0]

I just did a test and out of eight semi-randomly chosen US servers one (Vulpecula) gave a 403 error, one gave a reCaptcha but then worked normally, and the other 6 were fine.  For whatever reason the routing tool showed that Vulpecula was successful with no problems even though I used it after getting the 403 error with Vulpecula.

[Staff 9744]

3 hours ago, n41461 said:

I just did a test and out of eight semi-randomly chosen US servers one (Vulpecula) gave a 403 error, one gave a reCaptcha but then worked normally, and the other 6 were fine.  For whatever reason the routing tool showed that Vulpecula was successful with no problems even though I used it after getting the 403 error with Vulpecula.

Hello!

This sounds like an anomaly in the route checker, we will investigate, thank you.

Kind regards
 

[renewill 0]

Any news regarding this issue? Sometimes google search is needed and this should be fixed within the AirVPN environment.

[Perenor 0]

I was wondering too whether this will be fixed on the AirVPN side. Because right now searches using the Google search page don't work at all. I'm getting recaptcha screens all of the time telling my "network is blocked due to unaddressed complaints about malevolent behaviour" (roughly translated from the dutch  message  I'm getting. And it's really difficult to get the recaptcha validated. You need to click on multple tiles in their validation. And you have to validate on multiple pictures. This is driving me nuts, so much that I am considering on switching to another VPN provider.

[shay peretz 1]

All VPN companies have a CAPTCHA, Proton VPN are number 1 in the amount of CAPTCHAs I have ever encountered

[Riddick 10]

On 9/26/2023 at 5:29 PM, Perenor said:

I was wondering too whether this will be fixed on the AirVPN side. Because right now searches using the Google search page don't work at all. I'm getting recaptcha screens all of the time telling my "network is blocked due to unaddressed complaints about malevolent behaviour" (roughly translated from the dutch  message  I'm getting. And it's really difficult to get the recaptcha validated. You need to click on multple tiles in their validation. And you have to validate on multiple pictures. This is driving me nuts, so much that I am considering on switching to another VPN provider.

Join the club  I'm afraid this is never going to get fixed as long as AirVPN does not change servers / IP addresses / DNS,etc... to keep em guessing. The only workaround is to enable and use multi-vpn providers inside Eddie client, that are currently not flagged, but it's just a matter of time.

Per IP address in your screen this is the reason why you are getting the annoying recaptchas:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/ip-address/134.19.179.243/detection
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/ip-address/134.19.179.243/relations
https://www.virustotal.com/graph/134.19.179.243
 

[Riddick 10]

On 9/26/2023 at 8:28 PM, shay peretz said:

All VPN companies have a CAPTCHA, Proton VPN are number 1 in the amount of CAPTCHAs I have ever encountered

Not all VPNs have the recaptcha issue, but it's more or less a cat-and-mouse game, until they do.