VPN set to Europe but BBC iplayer still knows I'm not in Europe

[Gertrude29]

Gertrude29 last edited by

I am wanting to watch the BBC iplayer so came to Opera, set my VPN to Europe and it BBC still says they see I am not in Europe. I cleared my browser cache thinking that might help but no luck. Any suggestions?

[leocg]

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Gertrude29 last edited by

@gertrude29 Probably the location is being guessed wrongly.

[blackbird71]

blackbird71 @Gertrude29 last edited by blackbird71

@gertrude29 A VPN can only substitute its IP address for yours, but there are other methods besides geolocating that IP address which websites can use to try to sniff out whether a visitor is where the visiting IP address 'claims' they are. Various settings in your operating system, browser extensions, certain browser settings, and so forth can "leak" your actual location to a website... or at least might indicate you're not where the VPN is claiming that you are.

A website that's determined to exclude visitors from outside a certain locale can employ a variety of tests in their site code to sniff for various kinds of leaked data, independent of the visiting IP address. In those cases, the user must make sure none of those possible leakage paths provide information that betrays the user as not being in the locale to which the site is seeking to restrict their service. Some websites (and national censors) are much more rigorous in their blocking efforts than others.

[spaceopt12321]

spaceopt12321 Banned last edited by

That's because BBC iplayer is too smart to detect a virtual IP address and if an IP is used again and again.... like the VPN service provider has limited addresses, then it's normal that your IP will be detected.