YouTube Unblocked: What Actually Works on School, Work, and Public Networks

Click on play, wait for the loading circle to spin, and then a message pops up: This site is not available on this network. That’s not a figment of your imagination: if that were to happen on a school computer, or an office laptop, or public Wi-Fi at an airport or library, you would be right. It’s not that YouTube is a bad platform, it’s just one of the most commonly restricted websites anywhere. Typically because it’s very large, easy to get lost in, and bandwidth intensive, so it’s an easy target for anyone controlling the network.

You don’t need to do anything complicated or shady in order to get YouTube unblocked. Most of the time it’s just a matter of knowing what kind of restriction you have and then selecting a fix that corresponds to it. If a filter at a basic school isn’t going to block it, this filter won’t necessarily block it, and the reverse is also the case, so it’s best to know what you’re in for before you start trying.

Why YouTube ends up blocked in the first place

The reasons given for restricting YouTube vary from network to network and only a few aren’t practical considerations about the dangers of the platform.

Typically, bandwidth is the limiting factor. Streaming video consumes a lot more bandwidth than any other activity on the Internet, and if dozens or hundreds of devices are connected to the same Internet, then if a few people start streaming video, they will noticeably slow it down for all the others. Oftentimes, it’s the easiest option for an IT team to block out YouTube entirely, even if it means sacrificing bandwidth for the information that’s important.

The other obvious reason is productivity. YouTube’s recommended videos and the ability to play automatically make it easy to lose an hour or more without realizing it, and school officials would rather their students be studying a course and employers be at work. A blanket block is a blunt instrument but a much easier way to get set up than to watch what everyone is watching.

There is also a level of content policy, as in schools. Many schools have to block content which may be unsuitable for pupils, viewing them one by one would be impractical, so blocking the site becomes the standard solution. That makes one real headache for teachers who want to play one useful clip because that’s the same rule that keeps out irrelevant content and anything that’s educational.

There are other countries that block YouTube at a national level due to regulatory reasons, and some videos are not available in some parts of the world due to licensing agreements, not because they are blocked. Some public Wi-Fi hotspots also do not allow streaming, typically to maintain a shared connection adequate for general Internet browsing for all users on that network. If you’re not the only one whose site is blocked on your network, then this tutorial on how to unblock websites at school shows you the steps to unblock all sites.

The actual process of how these blocks are set up

It is good to have an understanding of how a restriction is being implemented, as this will dictate which fixes work.

The easiest way is through DNS blocking. When you type a web address into your device, it will query a DNS server to tell it the IP address of the site you are trying to reach. The average visit can be made impossible before it even starts with a network setting that prevents it from even being resolved by its DNS server as an answer. This is typical as it is easy and inexpensive to implement.

One level up is IP or URL filtering, which involves your network’s firewall looking at the destination of your traffic and preventing it from reaching YouTube’s servers or if it contains the word ‘youtube’ in the request itself. This snags those who attempt to type an IP address to bypass a DNS block, hence the prevalence on networks that have already experienced a workaround.

The most comprehensive is deep packet inspection, which checks the packets of your traffic for content instead of the destination. This can also detect YouTube activity if someone tries to mask it, and is typically only found in more highly monitored corporate or school networks that are supported by a staff of dedicated IT personnel.
There’s a weakness in each of these and, just as you can imagine, a fix that works 100% in one network could bomb the entire other network.

The most reliable fix: using a VPN

No matter which of the above methods is implemented, in most cases, using a VPN is the most reliable way to unblock YouTube. A VPN sends traffic to another server via an encrypted tunnel, leaving the network to see that you’re sending encrypted data to a new place, rather than a specific location. By doing that, you will bypass DNS blocks, IP filtering and much of the packet inspection system at the same time.

That encryption can be helpful in addition to circumventing a block. Any public Wi-Fi connection is easily snoopable and by using a VPN, you can browse as if no other people were using the same connection on the same site.

But not every VPN service provider is to be trusted. Over the years, a number of free VPN apps have been detected to generate revenue from their users by logging and selling their data, limiting their speed until they purchase an upgrade and/or by showing them superfluous ads. If you’re going to use one regularly, it is worthwhile to spend a few minutes looking at independent reviews, checking to see if the provider actually has a no-logs policy and selecting a server location that is close to you, as distance does make a difference in how much buffering you will experience after you log in. For those who prefer to do their own research, we’ve compiled a list of some great free VPNs for PC that you can compare.

It’s impossible not to admit it, but in some cases, it may well be a violation of the acceptable use policy of a school or workplace to use a VPN to circumvent network limitations, even if no law would consider such actions illegal. If you’re putting something on a device that you don’t own, it’s a decision for you to make, but it’s good to be aware of before doing so.

Lighter alternatives: proxies and Smart DNS

A VPN isn’t the only option. Web proxies send your web traffic through a different server, but don’t always encrypt it, which is often enough to bypass a simple DNS blockage. There are numerous free proxy sites created especially for streaming sites. However, few do not necessarily encrypt your data like a VPN, some add their own ads to the page you open, and the ones that do work today are blocked within weeks because popular proxies get blocked on blocklists rather quickly when an IT department sees them.

Smart DNS services take a narrower approach. They don’t reroute all your traffic, just the request for DNS information associated with streaming services, which can typically result in increased speeds because there is no encryption overhead slowing anything down. In exchange, Smart DNS can only block at the DNS level. If the network is running IP filtering or packet inspection, it won’t make any difference whatsoever.

Fixes that don’t need any extra tools

However, before anything else, do a few simple things, because oftentimes, blocked-YouTube scenarios have a much simpler cause than a firewall rule.

The fastest test you can perform is switching from Wi-Fi to mobile data service on the phone. Now, if YouTube plays well on a cell and not on the network you are connected to, then you have confirmed that it is being blocked on that network, and an immediate method of viewing the content you needed.

Sometimes a restriction that is only established at the DNS level can be overcome by simply changing the DNS settings of your device to a public DNS provider, such as Cloudflare’s or Google’s public DNS. Although it will not protect against IP filtering or packet inspection, it is a five-minute change in your network settings that does not require any software to be installed, and is worth a try before resorting to a heavier tool.

Alternatively, using the mobile app and a browser, or vice versa, sometimes helps as well, as some filtering setup will only capture one and not the other. First, it is important to check if it is actually a block to begin with, or if it is a temporary outage or if it is a restriction on a particular video only, because there are different ways to deal with each of these issues.

When it’s not really a block at all

Not all of YouTube’s problems are necessarily imposed on your network. There are times when a video appears giving information that it is not available in your country due to a licensing decision by the content owner, and your school, office or Internet provider has nothing to do with it. The fix takes place at the content-licensing level, not the network level, but a VPN still helps here, since being connected via a server in a country where the video is available means it looks like you’re in that country.

There’s a wrinkle from mobile carriers, too. Some budget or prepaid plans have a hidden video streaming limit that effectively makes it look like a block when in fact there is not one. When YouTube works but the resolution doesn’t change despite making selections, it’s likely throttling by the carrier rather than a true block, and sometimes a VPN can help with that since encrypted traffic is more difficult to focus on and slow down intentionally by a carrier.

Knowing which of these you’re actually facing will help in the troubleshooting process of your Wi-Fi settings, as it won’t do you any good if you are hit with a license problem or a capped data plan.

A few safety notes before you install anything

This is a problem that is being targeted by free tools that are developed to spread malware or data being harvested without user knowledge, all because there are so many people looking for a solution at the same time. Use only services that have received a lot of feedback, don’t use random browser extensions or proxy sites you don’t know about, don’t enter login information on unknown proxy pages and don’t install anything new if you already have an antivirus program, keep it up to date.

It’s also important to note that VPN usage is different around the world. While most countries don’t have any problem with it, a few countries regulate and limit the use of VPNs at the legal level, so if you are traveling or living in a country with more stringent Internet laws, it might be worth looking into the local situation before you start using a VPN regularly.

If your first attempt doesn’t work

If it doesn’t work the first time, don’t give up on the whole approach. Often, a cached DNS entry can continue to use the old and blocked entry in your device, even after you have changed your settings, and the entry is cleared when you restart your device or browser. It also helps to delete cookies and the cache from the browser, particularly if you’ve landed on an error page, which may have been stored locally from a previous attempt. Similar problems, different solutions: On phones, you can simply close and reopen YouTube, or delete its app or caches from your phone’s settings.

In more highly consumed networks, especially those established by an IT team that is already preparing for workarounds, it may be necessary to use multiple methods instead of a single one. A combination of using a VPN with another DNS service provider covers more ground than either service alone, as a single solution may only address one of the multiple layers the block can be created at.

Getting a smoother experience once you’re connected

With access working, a few tweaks can truly impact the viewing experience. If possible, with a VPN or proxy service, find a server that is physically close to you to reduce buffering as much as possible. Reduce the video resolution slightly from the default setting if the connection is already pushed to the limit due to encryption overhead. If you will be using it often rather than infrequently, you’ll be better off with a paid, reputable VPN service, as free VPNs are often congested and the servers are shared among many users.

YouTube ends up being blocked for almost always trivial reasons: because of limited bandwidth, because productivity policies are in place, because of blanket filters that couldn’t possibly distinguish between something distracting and something useful. The solution to unblocking YouTube typically becomes a matter of finding the right solution for the specific blocking that you are facing, which can range from a whole-VPN setup for a very heavily filtered network to simply switching to mobile data for five minutes. It doesn’t matter which tools you use, there is a little bit of trust in the tools that will help ensure that the fix doesn’t actually make things worse than the results you were after.