Reddit started blocking VPN users on old.reddit.com

https://lemm.ee/post/28216425

Reddit started blocking VPN users on old.reddit.com - lemm.ee

At this point, I’m not even going to bother trying to go on there anymore.

there is libreddit with multiple public instances, for example libreddit.lunar.icu

No clue how long it will take until they block that as well, but for now it works with VPN.

You can use a browser plugin for automatically redirecting.

popular

View on Libreddit, an alternative private front-end to Reddit.

Libreddit is discontinued and due to draconian API limits most instances rarely work
One could use one of the Lemmy instance dedicated at mirroring reddit as a workaround I suppose
They really want to track you

VPNs don’t prevent tracking, especially when you’re logging into services.

They can help obfuscate your identity to varying degrees, but honestly this is a pretty odd decision. I’m guessing it has more to do with malicious activity, or some other type of activities that Reddit is trying to curtail, and they feel blocking VPN IP ranges will help them.

Many users don’t log in. After the fall of the 3rd party apps, I only use the rdx webapp if I want to view reddit. I don’t log in with an account at all anymore. So all of my data looks like some anon browsing from the same VPN server as hundreds of other anons. Yes they can analyze all of that traffic and individualize it, but that takes work. I’m glad to make them expend more effort, even if they get the same data in the end. Every step that makes it less cost effective for them is better, even if not perfect.

Maybe blocking Russian spam bots. Because they interfere with their own spam bots.

If the Russians want their propaganda on Reddit, they will have to pay to use the Reddit bots like everybody else.

That… actually sounds pretty plausible.
Also blocking web crawlers in the post API era.
Sometimes I read reddit post while not logged in on old.reddit with vpn on. Just the other day I got this message. After changing servers the message went away
Could have learned that a long time ago. Everybody learns it somehow from some greedy company. Luckily you’ve learned it now.

Same.

I’m switching everthing over to federated, self-hosted, decentralized, open source…

It’s a brave new old school world!

Well you shouldn’t trust a public, decentralized, open source personally hosted service either.

I don’t really know who’s hosting the Lemmy or other fediverse services I use and what access they have to the data that we post on there.

Basically, you shouldn’t trust any online service with your data and your posts.

Off the grid it is, then
Or just use e2e encrypted services. They can be trustless and still useful.
Depends on how they’re implemented. Signal and WhatsApp are e2e encrypted, but they track your phone number, your contacts and IP address. Maybe even metadata

Of course you shouldn’t but there is a categorical difference between the risk of a corporation exploiting you because of a power imbalance (you want to use Reddit, there aren’t alternatives in this hypothetical scenario) and the rando running your fediverse instance abandoning the project or being weird about your data.

The second category can definitely be problematic, but it just isn’t the same level of awfulness and systematic exploitation that corporations wield every day to extract a profit.

What’s to stop a data broker from running an instance?

Sure it could happen, but I don’t understand what relevance that has when you compare it to the fact that you KNOW without a shadow of a doubt corporations are going to sell your data to the maximal amount they can, even if it is illegal.

Besides this isn’t about our data being sold or not being sold really (our data will be mined and sold so long as it is publicly available on social networks in a certain sense), it is about who has the power and who doesn’t. Does a single corporation run by a billionaire fascist-baby or is it run by an imperfect constellation of developers, instance maintainers and moderators?

Eh. I went the other route. I am very noisy online. I post and comment all over the place but I treat all of that as what it is, content I have given away freely and publicly. Now, when I need to do something privately, you are going to need serious mojo to he able to dig it out. Plus, who would assume that I do certain things privately when almost everything I do is out in the open.
SELECT 'ipaddress', 'username' FROM tables WHERE (username.normalize() == "jomiran" OR post.links CONTAIN "jomiran") FILTER content IN _blacklist_keywords;

Or some such. Data is easy to mine if you have a target. It’s finding unknown targets that is hard.

Exactly. Do a search for my username and get flooded with shitposts. IP? MAC? Same, plus some porn watching and way too much YouTube. Everything I want to keep private is done with as many degrees of separation as possible.

IP? MAC? Same

Unique fingerprint? Most likely the same with your “private” stuff.

I use disposable hardware (one time use) and unique, pre-configured remote access points from third party locations for my work. In other words, many little headless Raspberry Pis everywhere.

I have 10 Facebook accounts, a few with my real name and about 20 google accounts.

The real accounts that I use are created and destroyed frequently.

You…you realize you just posted right?
Just because you shouldn’t trust them doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to interact with them. It just means you need to be careful.
What about a whiteboard?
You could message the instance admin on matrix and get to know them…
You can trust that the service will persist. The fediverse is practically speaking unkillable since no one group holds all the strings. The trade off is that any data you post is shared freely with all. At least it’s clear from the start and no one is profiting off of it. Unlike Reddit, you know exactly what’s going on as soon as you sign up.
True, I am safeties alone in my dank basement
Internet 101 if you want control, self host.
Hmmm, from a tech perspective there’s lots of VPS hosts that provide dashboards able to deploy a CMS in one click (Ghost, WordPress, etc.), in that way it’s never been easier to get started. The hard part though is gaining visibility and publishing enough content to give people a reason to visit.

To each their own, that can be a benefit but youll still need to buy hardware and maybe rent rack space (if you need bandwidth).

My tiny slice of the web hosts a private image gallery for my family to upload and share photos. Going into it I wasn’t really interested in administering yet another server. Instead I threw $6 at a VPS and had a publicly accessible, user friendly site with backups up and running in about 15 minutes… and I haven’t had to think about it again since. That monthly sub is worth it for reclaiming my time.

The currency situation makes sense and I apologize-- I realize now I had a very western-centric perspective while writing my thoughts. I can efinitely understand hosting on your own hardware as the opportunity cost in that situation is hugely different. I think the next best option is a good server OS and the ghost docker container but you are right it is not as straight forward or easy. Best of luck friend, trust documentation not youtubers :)
Docker

old.reddit.com (and the .onion one) works in the Tor Browser, for me at least. I am not logged in
That’s good to know the onion service still works, thanks

I wonder if the Tor version of Reddit still works

forum.torproject.org/t/…/5305

Reddit Onion Service Launch!

Reddit Onion Service Launch by securimancer[A] - Reddit Onion Service Launch : redditsecurity Hi all, We wanted to let you know that Reddit is now available as an “onion service” on Tor at the address: https://www.reddittorjg6rue252oqsxryoxengawnmo46qy4kyii5wtqnwfj4ooad.onion As some of you likely know, an onion service enables users to browse the internet anonymously. Tor is a free and open-source software that enables this kind of anonymous communication and browsing. It’s an important ...

Tor Project Forum
Onion link for posterity.

Still works with ExpressVPN

Also works with Apple Private Relay

Edit: tested while logged out

RedLib, the continuation of LibReddit,
still works:
github.com/redlib-org/redlib

I use it in combination with this GreaseMonkey script,
to redirect me to a random RedLib instance:
greasyfork.org/…/469587-reddit-to-libreddit-redir…

Due to instances often going down and/or stop working.

GitHub - redlib-org/redlib: Private front-end for Reddit

Private front-end for Reddit . Contribute to redlib-org/redlib development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

On Android you can use Stealth . That’s what I use for searches that pull up Reddit posts.

It also lets you subscribe to subs without having an account if you want. You actually do not have the option to sign in on Stealth.

Stealth | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

Stealth is an account-free, privacy-oriented, and feature-rich Reddit client.

The stealth protocol does not have anything to do with accessing individual sites or services. The purpose of stealth is when trying to estata VPN connection to a provider that does not allow VPNs. For example, a public wifi that blocks VPN connections or some countries that require ISPs to block VPN connections.
I never said it did. If you had bothered to actually read my comment or look at the link you would have seen that I was referencing the app Stealth.
stealth doesn’t work at all, it just says something went wrong.

I only get the ‘something went wrong’ error when a post has been scraped, then deleted. So you go to load it but it no longer exists.

I just tried it again before replying and it worked fine for me.

Not the original person replying but I tried it as well and opening the app gives me the same error message.

There’s a message at the bottom that says

Stealth might stop working soon

that when clicked says

Considering it talks about old.reddit.com I imagine the VPN issue is effecting it as well.

It is odd, it still works fine for me.

That notice has been there since the third party change. Under ‘Data’ - ‘Reddit Source’ I had to change it from ‘Teddit’ to ‘Reddit’. Teddit stopped working quite soon after the API change.

It seems to not be effecting all VPN connections, I’m wondering if yours just hasn’t been blocked yet?
I am using Orbot, which always shows up as a TOR exit node. Strange that they would allow that. I always pick somewhere in western Europe so my time zone stays the same.
it won’t load anything. not the front page, no search results, nothing. i recall trying like half a year ago too, and with similar results.

I’m still able to get in but I’ve only checked because of this post, lol

Edit: I use Proton (not logged in)