VPN not evading geofence? Why?

[jyl]

For the IT minded…

I fire up my VPN, connect through a French POP, set my browser (Safari) on “private” mode, and go to france.tv to watch me some sweet free Tour de France. In France, the Tour is free on TV and streaming, it’s every Frenchman’s sacred right - liberte egalite fraternite et le Tour. France.tv wants me to create an account, but asks only for my first name and email, no address or payment, so I give my name and Gmail, and greedily click on “Tour en direct”. And get a black square - this content n’est pas disponible (available) in your region Etas-Unis (USA).

WTF. How do they know I’m in the US? Don’t they remember D-day and how we saved their Freedom Fries-munching butts? They OWE me, but more relevantly, isn’t that what a VPN is for?

What am I missing? How can I get around France Television’s geofencing?

[wildthing]

Your machine is telling the browser where it is and the browser is sending the location to the site. Check your permissions/privacy settings on both the machine and the browser, and then the website settings.

Mac: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/allow-apps-to-detect-the-location-of-your-mac-mh35873/mac
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/stop-websites-asking-location-safari/
https://www.macworld.com/article/673549/how-to-stop-safari-asking-for-your-location.html

[jyl]

Thank you! I will read those links. Sweet free Tour will be mine! (And sweet free Giro, Vuelta).

I like hearing the French, Italian, Spanish commentary. You can figure out the basics of what’s going on just from the screen data and catching the rider names being spoken. Other than Phil Liggett, Peacock’s commentators seem pretty bad. Bob Roll seems to be there to talk about the towns and sights. The two guys commenting on tactics don’t add much. The European ads are a change.

[masraum]

In addition to your browser possibly providing more info that you'd want (which seems odd in "private" mode). You could also try another browser. Websites can only get information from your PC that is allowed by the browser. It's possible that safari is allowing more than you would expect in Private mode. Maybe try FF or Chrome (also in their respective private modes).

I think it's also possible that your gmail account may be a give away. You might try firing up your VPN and creating a new gmail account over your vpn. Then use that account when you go to the website.

[john70t]

All the major VPN ownership's have been 'compromised' to my understanding. Thanks Hollywood.

[SheepShagger]

You are probably leaking your IP through DNS requests. Use this to check https://ipleak.net

[Risamon]

I had the same issue a while ago and switching to a mobile proxy worked way better for me. It routes your connection through real mobile networks instead of data centers, so it looks more like regular traffic to the services you're trying to access. Some sites are getting good at spotting VPN IPs, especially shared ones, but mobile proxy IPs are harder for them to flag.