VPNs could unblock restricted sites. However, there are also times when your VPN gets blocked by your office, school, ISP or even an airplane firewall. So, the question now is, with VPN being a tool used for encryption and circumventing restrictions, what will we do when the tool that we are using is blocked? The good news is, there are way, techniques and tools that you could use to unblock your VPN.
Who Blocks VPN Traffic?
There are networks that could block VPNs and these networks are usually those who would want more control over their clients or users. These are the usual common places where you will find VPNs blocked:
- School – With schools having internet access, administrators would usually try and would like to monitor, limit and restrict what students could do and access online. This is especially true for younger children in school. Sometimes, the school would even block social media or social networking sites and even gaming sites as well.
- Work – employers would also like to block unauthorized VPN services as these tools could aid employees in accessing social media sites which most employers see as time wasting. Moreover, there are also companies that would want to monitor what the employees are doing online.
- Countries – countries sometimes restrict free internet access. They usually control what their citizens could share, read and discuss.
- On-demand WiFi – sometimes when you are traveling through a plane and try to access Hulu, Netflix or Spotify through a VPN and could not because the plane or the hotel you are in uses services or tools like GoGo. GoGo is a tool that could block VPNs. Hence, your connection will go very slow and will not be able to connect to any site you would wish to access even if you use VPN
How are VPNs Blocked?
DPI, Deep Packet Inspection is usually performed by advanced software and Firewalls use this to analyze type and destination of every data packet. In addition to that, DPI allows ISP to know what type of site you visit whether it is YouTube or you are using a web browser or a VPN or skype, etc. In other words, through the DPI, one could restrict or block types of traffic. Though this is the case, you could still disguise your VPN traffic as a regular web browser traffic which could make it difficult for a network to block your VPN connection.
How to Unblock a VPN?
VPN service providers has the knowledge and are aware that there are some ISPs or networks that could and are blocking VPN traffic which is the reason they have developed Stealth VPN technology.
VPN stealth technology is a feature that could scramble your VPN traffic. This means, your connection will not be identified as VPN traffic but instead will be seen as a regular TLS encrypted web traffic. There are two techniques to be able to unblock your VPN on any network that blocks your connection or traffic.
Technique 1- Run OpenVPN on port 443.
A port that is commonly used by SSL or TLS encrypted web traffic is known as Port 443. It is a standard encryption protocol that is used whenever you try to access websites or deal with sensitive account data such as bank, credit card and the like.
OpenVPN uses SSL encryption by switching or going to port 443 which could circumvent DPI firewalls.
How to use port 443?
Through the use of a high quality paid VPN service, you could easily switch to port 443 without any difficulty. If you need any assistance, all you have to do is contact your VPN service provider’s customer service or technical support.
Technique 2 – StealthVPN or Obfuscation
Take note that the use of port 443, you would still have to deal with your data packet header. As mentioned above, the data packet header is your fingerprint which could be recognized by a firewall. However, by using a VPN which offers Stealth technology feature, your VPN will be able to obscure your packet headers. This means, your connection will not be identified or will not be recognized.
VPNs that offer stealth or obfuscation technology:
- VPN.ac
- IPVanish
- Torguard
- VyprVPN
- Proxy.sh
Advanced Obfuscation Techniques
For those who are highly concerned with privacy and secured connection, a VPN is the ultimate answer and run it through a Tor network. This could make your connection or traffic anonymous. However, unfortunately, using Tor network also has a downside and that is your VPN will be channeled through multiple encrypted proxy layers which will make your connection slower.
Using OpenVPN to access Tor is a bit complicated but do not worry as there are VPNs that offer built VPN-over-Tor support which you could contact for assistance.
VPNs which offers VPN-Over-Tor Support:
- NordVPN
- BolehVPN
- Proxy.sh
- AirVPN
As a conclusion, in this article, we have listed three ways for you to be able to unblock your VPN and bypass firewalls. We highly recommend the use of OpenVPN on port 443 or subscribing to a VPN that offers built-in obfuscation technology which often could provide 90% success of you being able to unblock your VPN
