Kagi hates VPNs

nessuno

When I try to access Kagi with VPN on , I get the following message:

Error: Forbidden
Your client does not have permission to get URL / from this server.

Could you please fix this?

I genuinely believe that this is a candid error caused by you indiscriminately using some "frameworks" or similar third-party services, with VPN blocking included. I can not imagine any valid reason why you would want to prohibit me, a logged in user (you know who I am!) from using Kagi over VPN.

I am sorry to say, but privacy-wise the use of a VPN is more important than Kagi (which is probably the best search aggregator of the moment). If you cater for privacy-oriented users, you definitely need to accept VPNs.

Kagi should ignore if I use VPN.

Thibaultmol

It's not something that they're trying to block on purpose, it's just an inherent problem it seems with the way they are hosting their infrastructure via gcp:

https://help.kagi.com/kagi/faq/faq.html#i-get-error-forbidden-when-trying-to-visit-kagi

It's also good to know that Kagi has something called privacy pass, which allows you to do anonymous searches
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/privacy/privacy-pass.html

KagiFeedbackDuder

What VPN are you using? I have accessed Kagi via many Proton VPN IPs and it works fine.

kirkmc

I use Mullvad and haven’t had any issues.

xx

I’ve never had any issues while using Mullvad for example.

nessuno

AirVPN.

Sorry, if the provider is overreaching like this, then you need to change it. It is not OK to block VPN exit points, BGP ASs, residential IP ranges etc. because someone did something bad. It is like sending a whole city to jail because one crime was commited there.

Kagi is a privacy service, and it should support other privacy measures taken by its clients. I am sorry to say so, but using a VPN is a stronger measure than using Kagi. So : if you want the money of the VPN using subscribers, than you'd better accomodate them. They won't disable VPN and keep Kagi, but rather do it in reverse.

madhatter

+1 for Mullvad - no issues accessing any Kagi services via Mullvad.

fxgn

I haven't had any issues with any VPN I've tried, including selfhosted wireguard on a DigitalOcean server, which was banned by half the websites - but not Kagi. I think you should reach out to your VPN provider and ask them to get a clean IPv4 address.

Dustin

@nessuno I have noted in the Discord before that certain common VPN addresses/locations seem to be blocked by Google GCP, notably, the common free ones that ProtonVPN provides. Netherlands, Japan and in California in particular.

What VPN provider are you using and what locale are you connected to?

nessuno

AirVPN / Germany. AirVPN is a grassroots European company. But really : it is not my job as a user to keep hunting for the currently unblocked VPN. This brings us back into the arms race we had in Ads vs. Adblockers and spammers vs. spam filters. Enough.

LuanPhan

@nessuno Some VPN providers don't work well with Google Cloud Load Balancer, where we host kagi.com. Unfortunately, Google blocks them somewhere in the travel path, which we're unable to control. To make sure you're not in this case, do you mind connecting to VPN again, trying to access Kagi.com and let us know your public VPN IP when connected?

nessuno

178.162.212.214
thank you.