Geo-blocking
Restricting access to content based on the country your address appears to be in.
Glossary
VPN detection
Techniques services use to identify and block traffic arriving from known VPN infrastructure.
Why it matters
It is why streaming access is unstable and why no honest review can promise a specific service will work.
What most explanations leave out
Detection mostly relies on commercial databases of datacentre address ranges, plus behavioural signals like hundreds of unrelated accounts on one address. It is a continuous cycle: providers rotate ranges, databases catch up. Any claim about a named service is accurate for a few weeks at best.
Related terms
Terms are defined here because they appear in our scoring rubric or in provider reviews, not to fill a glossary.