Can't access this forum on my work Wifi

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So, my work Wifi seems to block a lot of things. For example, VPN websites. All VPN connections are also blocked (Wireguard, OpenVPN, whatever, it doesn’t work) and so is DNS-over-TLS.

I noticed that I cannot access discuss.privacyguides.net (keeps showing those small “loading” dots but never loads) however I can access the main website of Privacyguides.

I tried with different browsers (Firefox & Edge), with tracking blocker on/off, uBlock Origin on/off, DoH on/off but to no avail. With a VPN on (using my provider’s “undetectable” protocol) I can suddenly access this forum. I don’t think it’s specifically blocked by my Wifi because the main domain is accessible. I think it’s got something to do with blocked ports maybe?

This guy using Brave seemed to have the same problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/yvxvix/i_use_brave_browser_and_discussprivacyguide_forum/

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Did you block JavaScript? Discourse requires that. Make sure privacyguidesusercontent.com and b-cdn.net are required.

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No, Javascript is not blocked. It could be something to do with ports, because I can load the forum on a different Wifi or with VPN on. Is there any chance that this forum is using some non-standard ports to connect? As said, the main website works fine, so the domain itself it not blocked. It’s really strange.

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Are you sure forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com isn’t blocked? It might be specifically blocked by your work IT team because it is a newer domain, and that would cause the issues you’re seeing. You could try accessing a JS file like https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/assets/vendor-cc4a00de97abac8ddf3168b3173edd41f5f8c77742b62307a5c0389a6feb0b79.br.js and see if it loads.

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Hi Jonah, I think you’re absolutely right. When I try to access that domain without VPN I get

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com. PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR

Error code: PR_CONNECT_RESET_ERROR

    The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
    Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

With VPN on, it works. So I think you’re right that my work network seems to filter all new domains. Maybe it will get fixed once it’s not “new” anymore. But it definitely means it’s not your fault.

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