NextDNS adds an option to bypass age verification on websites

NextDNS has introduced a feature that will allow users to bypass age verification requirements on websites that require an ID. It might be useful for users in the U.K., U.S., Europe and regions where age-restrictions are slowly being introduced.

In case you missed it, Xbox, X (Twitter), Reddit, and many other services now require users to submit an ID to prove that are 18 years old or older, in the above-mentioned regions. These measures are being placed to ensure compliance with the local laws such as The Online Safety Bill in the U.K.

Such laws were created to prevent underage users from accessing harmful, inappropriate content, but they have risen privacy concerns among users. Who likes to provide government issued ID cards, or phone numbers, or selfies, to websites? One way to work around the issue is to use a VPN to mask your location.

NextDNS' new feature reportedly works similarly, it uses DNS level geo spoofing for this feature. So, when you visit a website that requires users from a country to verify their age by submitting an ID, the service will intercept the DNS request, and route it to a proxy server located in a different country that doesn't require ID verification.

The option to Bypass Age Verification is available in the free version of NextDNS, which is pretty cool. To use it,

1. Go to https://my.nextdns.io/
2. Login to your account.
3. Click on the Settings tab.
4. Scroll down the list till you see Bypass Age Verification, and click on the button to toggle it.

Note: NextDNS says that users who enable the feature acknowledge that they are legally old enough to access the content.

According to users, NextDNS' new feature does not work for some websites, notably, Twitter and Reddit. But it is worth noting that the feature is still in beta, so it might support more websites in the future.

Since age verification isn't mandatory for websites in India, I used a VPN with a custom DNS setting to connect to servers in the U.K. There were no promts for age verification on Reddit, X, etc. Did it work? I'm not sure, because when I disabled NextDNS' setting, the websites still worked fine. I also wanted to know whether it was able to bypass age-restricted videos (e.g. The Witcher 4 trailer) on YouTube, but it failed to so, probably because YouTube's APIs requires users to sign in to their account. YouTube is testing age estimation in the U.S., by using AI to analyze user accounts, but this could spread to more Countries.

Some users say they've had success with unblocking access to a few websites, but it's all hearsay for now. It also remains to be seen whether services that are tied to a regional account/currency (like Xbox) will be able to make use of NextDNS' bypass option. In theory, the option to bypass these annoying requirements should make things easier to access social media websites. Perhaps users from the U.K. will have better luck with it.

Have you tried NextDNS to get past the verification prompts?

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☞ El artículo completo original de Ashwin lo puedes ver aquí