VPN servers mostly blocked by Reddit

[mazurka7 3]

It seems that Reddit has imposed an overnight block on most Japan and Singapore servers. I did not take screenshots of all the blocked ones, but testing shows that only 1 Japan server and 2 or 3 Singapore servers are still unblocked as of this post. AFAIK, the blocking was not in place this time yesterday.

[monstrocity 30]

I have the same issue, and I hope there's a solution besides disconnecting from the VPN server or resorting to Tor just to peruse a few Reddit comments. It seems every day more and more restrictions / blocks are being applied to AirVPN IP ranges, probably other VPN providers as well. The number of websites I encounter being blocked by Cloudflare, Sucuri, or GoDaddy increases by the day. It's getting ridiculous.

[Staff 9764]

Hello!

This looks like a relatively new Reddit policy, not specifically aimed at VPN, but at any IP address not assigned to residential ISPs. In this case access is granted but only after you have logged in. Just tested from all Japan servers, including Taphao, and we could access. After the login all Reddit is accessible, as far as we see. To maintain a robust anonymity layer in Reddit you need an anonymous e-mail address created with the protection of AirVPN and/or Tor, of course. Follow the instructions you have published in your screenshots to login (the login page does not block access from Tor or VPN or datacenters).

Two years ago Reddit started to prevent users to post more than a comment every 10 minutes if the connection came from a datacenter IP address ("if you are accessing from an hosting provider" hints to any non-residential IP address). The behavior you report seems quite new and we confirm that it happens even from dedicated servers completely unrelated from our VPN activities. However the system is still coughing because, on the other hand, as @mazurka7 correctly wrote, some VPN servers are not subjected to this filter.

Kind regards

[yyyzzz 0]

You can also get around this by using the old Reddit interface (just replace "www" with "old" in the URL).

[Huddling3504 3]

I just found out how to detour the blocking without using old.reddit.com. All you have to do is make a cookie following the next rules:
- domain: .reddit.com
- name: reddit_session
- value: any value as you want. It supposed to have your Reddit session data, but it can be anything just to detour the blocking. e.g., 0
- path: /

I used cookiebro extension to import and export a cookie but how to add a cookie is up to you. It is naive but it works anyway. I hope it helps, and they don't block this solution too soon.

Or maybe you can use the cookiebro-cookie-.reddit.com-reddit_session.json which I confirmed working on firefox and chromium.

Edited ... by Huddling3504
Attach cookie json file

[monstrocity 30]

On 12/9/2023 at 10:34 AM, Huddling3504 said:

I just found out how to detour the blocking without using old.reddit.com. All you have to do is make a cookie following the next rules:
- domain: .reddit.com
- name: reddit_session
- value: any value as you want. It supposed to have your Reddit session data, but it can be anything just to detour the blocking. e.g., 0
- path: /

I used cookiebro extension to import and export a cookie but how to add a cookie is up to you. It is naive but it works anyway. I hope it helps, and they don't block this solution too soon.

Or maybe you can use the cookiebro-cookie-.reddit.com-reddit_session.json which I confirmed working on firefox and chromium.

I got this to work in Brave but not in Firefox ESR.

[Zerolight 1]

On 12/9/2023 at 5:34 AM, Huddling3504 said:

I just found out how to detour the blocking without using old.reddit.com. All you have to do is make a cookie following the next rules:
- domain: .reddit.com
- name: reddit_session
- value: any value as you want. It supposed to have your Reddit session data, but it can be anything just to detour the blocking. e.g., 0
- path: /

I used cookiebro extension to import and export a cookie but how to add a cookie is up to you. It is naive but it works anyway. I hope it helps, and they don't block this solution too soon.

Or maybe you can use the cookiebro-cookie-.reddit.com-reddit_session.json which I confirmed working on firefox and chromium.

Threw this together for anyone running userscript with greasemonkey or tampermonkey (tested on chrome only)
Change the "EnterValueHere" to something else (once loaded reddit will show block message but refresh again and it will load)
 

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Create Cookie Userscript for reddit
// @version      1.0
// @description  Creates a cookie when the page is loaded
// @match            *://www.reddit.com/*
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
    'use strict';

    // Function to create a cookie
    function createCookie(name, value, days) {
        var expires = "";
        if (days) {
            var date = new Date();
            date.setTime(date.getTime() + (days * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000));
            expires = "; expires=" + date.toGMTString();
        }
        document.cookie = name + "=" + value + expires + "; path=/";
    }

    // Call the createCookie function with your desired cookie name, value, and expiration in days
    createCookie("reddit_session", "EnterValueHere", 7); // Example: expires in 7 days
})();

[Air4141841 23]

I guess I am not understanding the issue.  or the only one who knows you can click where it says reddit/login. (the first blue hyperlink)
login and it works? 

[monstrocity 30]

8 hours ago, Air4141841 said:

I guess I am not understanding the issue.  or the only one who knows you can click where it says reddit/login. (the first blue hyperlink)
login and it works? 

Some people only want to read comments about a particular topic, not be forced to login to read them. Reddit has implemented a soft block for VPN (and I believe Tor) users. If I visit the same Reddit page from my normal IP address, I can read comments without that whole "whoa there pardner..." nonsense. The cookie workarounds still do the trick though.

[Mordo 2]

Looks like the old.reddit method doesn't work anymore but found a great solution if you're a ublock origin or adguard user.

copy/paste of reddit comment so blocked users can see it.
 

Go to your uBlock Origin / AdGuard filter settings page and add this custom filter (in uBlock Origin it's under the "My filters" tab):



reddit.com#%#//scriptlet('set-cookie-reload', 'reddit_session', '0')



This will automatically create the reddit_session cookie as described in the post above.

You have to make sure that you are using the latest uBlock Origin or AdGuard extension, because the cookie filter syntax has only been added recently to uBlock Origin. (The above filter only works with uBO version 1.53.0 or higher)

Here are some more techy details about the cookie filter:

    It will create a session cookie, which will only last until the browser is closed. (This is good because see 2. and 3.)
    You will not be able to log-in to reddit while the cookie is set. (Also applies to manual method in the original post)
    If you want to log-in to reddit, you will have to remove or comment out the custom filter, then close and re-open your browser. Doing this will clear the session cookie and prevent your adblocker from automatically creating the fake session cookie again. You can comment out custom filters by prefixing them with an exclamation mark, e. g.: !reddit.com#%#//scriptlet('set-cookie-reload', 'reddit_session', '0')
    The cookie value is set to '0', this is a limitation of the new cookie filter syntax. Can't make it empty as of now unfortunately. It works fine with the value set to '0' though.

 
reddit comment
 

[VillainsCC 0]

They've really tightened up a bit this week at reddit. Killed off old.reddit and locked down page bookmarks so that you get the Whoa There Pardner! now as well. Up until the other day it only Whoa'd me on entering through a web link or search result link. This has also broken the search result links for VPN users. You search, see a reddit discussion that pertains to you, you click, reddit calls you Pardner, so you click the login link and your original search link is useless since pasting it into the browser will send you back to the OK Corral. You then have to manually search reddit for the thread DuckDuckGo (for example) told you about. And reddit search isn't that great at searching reddit.

Welcome to the new reddit, where no one is welcome.

[mazurka7 3]

On 3/29/2024 at 2:34 AM, Mordo said:

Looks like the old.reddit method doesn't work anymore but found a great solution if you're a ublock origin or adguard user.

copy/paste of reddit comment so blocked users can see it.
 

Go to your uBlock Origin / AdGuard filter settings page and add this custom filter (in uBlock Origin it's under the "My filters" tab):



reddit.com#%#//scriptlet('set-cookie-reload', 'reddit_session', '0')



This will automatically create the reddit_session cookie as described in the post above.

You have to make sure that you are using the latest uBlock Origin or AdGuard extension, because the cookie filter syntax has only been added recently to uBlock Origin. (The above filter only works with uBO version 1.53.0 or higher)

Here are some more techy details about the cookie filter:

    It will create a session cookie, which will only last until the browser is closed. (This is good because see 2. and 3.)
    You will not be able to log-in to reddit while the cookie is set. (Also applies to manual method in the original post)
    If you want to log-in to reddit, you will have to remove or comment out the custom filter, then close and re-open your browser. Doing this will clear the session cookie and prevent your adblocker from automatically creating the fake session cookie again. You can comment out custom filters by prefixing them with an exclamation mark, e. g.: !reddit.com#%#//scriptlet('set-cookie-reload', 'reddit_session', '0')
    The cookie value is set to '0', this is a limitation of the new cookie filter syntax. Can't make it empty as of now unfortunately. It works fine with the value set to '0' though.

 
reddit comment
 

This seems to have stopped working. Can anyone who is using this confirm?

The cookie injection via userscript also doesn't seem to work anymore. Can anyone also confirm that?

[caffeine0030 0]

On 4/8/2024 at 9:38 AM, mazurka7 said:

This seems to have stopped working. Can anyone who is using this confirm?

The cookie injection via userscript also doesn't seem to work anymore. Can anyone also confirm that?

Doesnt work anymore

edit: works sometimes on firefox  Edited ... by caffeine0030

[monstrocity 30]

cookies json configured with cookiebro extension still works for me in Brave browser.

[Crewman6639 4]

I use redlib now to view reddit along with libredirect.

[Mordo 2]

Everything still works for me on ublock origin with 1 small adjustment.
I think reddit blocked anyone with a Reddit session data value of 0.
i use:

reddit.com#%#//scriptlet('set-cookie-reload', 'reddit_session', '1')

As you can see, the only change is the last number from 0 to 1 and everything works again.