u open youtube in a new tab and that little square already shows up. u go to google to search something and have to prove ur not a robot again. u try to read some news and boom, another captcha. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
and the worst part? changing servers doesnt help. doesnt matter if u use proton, mullvad, nord, whatever. vpn ips are all on some blacklist somehow.
i used mullvad and honestly it wasnt much different. the situation is ugly for everyone who wants to have a minimum of privacy online~
why this is happening
the official excuse is "bots". sites say they need to block crawlers and spammers, and since bots use vpn to hide origin, everyone who uses vpn ends up in the same basket.
but some people disagree. browsers still have cookies, still have fingerprint, still have a thousand ways to know if ur human or not. captcha got MUCH worse lately, and its not just because of robots. theres a smell of "lets make life harder for people who want privacy" in the middle of all this.
the real thing is vpn ips have trash reputation. people use proton and other services to spam and attack sites, then captcha providers throw the whole ip range in the trash. u just wanna watch a video and end up paying for what some other dude did. unfair right?
what people are doing to survive
theres no perfect solution, but there are some ways to ease the suffering. ill list the ones i saw around and think are valid:
1. dont route everything through vpn
this is the most popular one. instead of sending ALL traffic through vpn, the person only routes whats necessary. for example, open a separate firefox only with the proton extension for sites that really need it. the rest of the traffic goes through the normal ip and u stay in peace.
works well if u only need to access geo-blocked stuff or some specific services. for torrent, some people use seedbox instead of vpn too. (¬‿¬)
2. switch servers all the time
some people suggest proton could implement fast automatic server switching when an ip is burned. but for now this doesnt exist in a practical way. u can try switching manually until u find a less messed up ip, but its too annoying.
3. buster
theres an extension called buster that solves audio captchas automatically. works 4 out of 5 times according to users. not perfect, but already removes a huge headache.
it basically clicks the audio captcha and solves it by itself. useful for those tired of staring at traffic lights and pedestrian crossings. ( ´ ω ` )
4. cloakbrowser
another tool going around is cloakbrowser. seems like it works straight away, without needing to solve captcha manually. havent tested it yet, but people are saying good things.
5. fixed / dedicated ip
some vpns offer the option to buy a fixed or dedicated ip just for u. since nobody else is using that ip to spam or do dumb stuff, its reputation is way better and captchas disappear almost instantly.
only theres a kinda obvious detail... if u have an ip that only u use, it becomes way easier to track u. part of the reason to use vpn is exactly to be in the middle of the crowd, right? with a dedicated ip u leave the crowd and stand alone with ur little name tag. (´-ι_-｀)
so its that thing... u trade one problem for another. less captcha, more traceability. depends on what u prioritize rn.
and now
the truth is theres no definitive way out while vpn providers cant improve their ips reputation. they would need to do a more aggressive cleanup of bad users and offer faster ip rotation.
until then, well have to live with this war. either accept proving ur human all the time, or adopt one of these workarounds.