Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive compensation when you click on links to products in this post. For an explanation of my Advertising Policy, visit this page. Thanks for reading!
What exactly is a VPN Blocker Plugin?
A VPN blocker plugin is a piece of software that you download onto your WordPress website.
These pieces of software are of course called plugins and are a key component of a WordPress website’s functionality.
A VPN blocker plugin is a plugin which blocks users who are accessing your WordPress website through the use of a VPN.
Although VPN blocker plugins are great and add an extra layer of defense to your WordPress website, they are not impervious.
So what can a VPN blocker plugin do for your website and how to best use a VPN blocker plugin will be the main topic of this post.
In this post, I will address those questions as well as other frequently asked questions regarding your VPN blocker plugin options.
Why would you need a VPN Blocker Plugin?
There are a few reasons why you would need a VPN blocker plugin for your WordPress website.
Although most WordPress websites do have an Akismet anti-spam plugin which helps prevent spam, it is not full proof.
In fact, as good as Akismet is, even in it’s paid version, many times spam gets through even the best anti-spam software when spammers utilize a VPN.
You see, as you may already know, VPNs use a variety of IP addresses and locations to mask their users real locations and IP addresses.
So if you have a forum, a very active website, where you encourage your visitors to engage in comments and respond to them, if you have a gaming website or an ecommerce website, many spammers, scammers and downright troublesome commenters often will create multiple user profiles to register on these sites.
They will then either try to use your services for free by repeatedly using different user names and registrations or they can simply leave a lot of bad comments and in some cases maybe even utilize a VPN for fraud purposes.
For example, Netflix is famous for using VPN blockers to block people from trying to attempt to use their online streaming services for free.
But Netflix is probably the most popular example of a website that uses VPN blocker.
You don’t have to be Netflix to see the utility of installing a VPN blocker plugin for your WordPress website.
A VPN blocker plugin along with other good security software plugins can greatly enhance the security of your WordPress website.
Although you should know that the most determined of hackers can hack almost any website once they set their minds to it.
All you have to do is look at recent news to realize that the most determined hackers can even shut down important infrastructure networks.
However, the key is to make your WordPress website as less attractive a target as possible so hackers will simply move on to other, more vulnerable WordPress websites.
Additionally, if your website has problems with bot traffic, you should know that bots also use VPNs in order to evade detection from normal WordPress security software and other safety measures.
So using a VPN blocker plugin will give you an added level of security from bots as well.
When should I get a VPN Blocker Plugin?
If you have a forum, ecommerce site or a gaming site with many users, then using a VPN blocker plugin can enhance the security of your website as well as save you a whole lot of time and aggravation.
Instead of trying to eliminate the endless supply of IP addresses and putting them into your WordPress security system so it blocks them, a VPN blocker plugin will have thousands of known IP addresses that VPN services use on a regular basis.
Although VPN blockers, again, aren’t 100% impervious to VPNs, they can greatly cut down the time you would need to use in order to individually block VPN IP addresses by simply downloading the VPN blocker plugin.
How does a VPN Blocker Plugin work?
A VPN blocker plugin basically not only helps block IP addresses that most VPNs use to access your WordPress website.
A VPN blocker plugin can also help you whitelist IP addresses that unfortunately get wrapped up in a VPN blocker’s network of IP addresses to block. It can also perform many of these functions:
- Prevent Proxies, Tor, VPN’s, IP Addresses, Ranges or ASN’s & select Countries from accessing your WordPress Login, Registration pages, Select Pages and Posts (or the whole site). In addition to preventing them from making comments on your pages and posts. A VPN Blocker will also help to prevent spammers as many of them use Proxies to hide their true location.
- Block Proxies, SOCKS4/5, The Onion Router (TOR), Web Proxies and Compromised Servers.
- Optionally block VPN’s.
- Support for Cloudflare.
- Block selected countries, even continents by selecting them in a list. You can optionally make this list a whitelist instead.
- Caching of known good IP addresses, after the first check to save on repeat queries (and slowing down good visitors).
Can I get a VPN Blocker Plugin for free?
The good news is, most VPN blocker plugins are available to WordPress users for free.
So, if you would like to give VPN blocker plugins a try, get to know their interfaces and dashboards as well as how they work, you can do so for free.
The free versions of VPN blocker plugins may give your WordPress website enough added protection from spammers, unwanted guests and multiple registrations by the same users from registering and accessing your site.
In addition, when combined with other security plugins software as well as login protections, the use of a VPN blocker plugin may be a great way to add an extra layer of protection to your WordPress website.
Even helping cut down on the amount of spam alone when combined with anti-spam software may be well worth downloading at least the free version.
However, you should know that the free version will, of course, be limited in what you can do with it.
If your website has a serious problem with unwanted users accessing it because they are using VPNs, you may need to upgrade to a paid version of the VPN blocker plugin that you’re using.
Many VPN blocker plugins will limit their use and features in their free versions. But the good news is, paid versions aren’t really all that expensive.
And for the amount of time they will save you from having to blacklist individual IPs etc. it may be well worth it.
In fact, many VPN blocker plugins go beyond simply banning popular IP addresses used by VPNs.
What are the most popular VPN Blocker Plugins?
Here are 2 of the most popular VPN Blocker plugins for WordPress. Check them out, most have free versions:
 |
 |
Here are a couple more popular VPN Blocker plugins:
However, the extra features in their paid versions might be well worth the price if you have a serious problem with spammers, aggressive and malicious members on a forum or WordPress website etc.
WordPress VPN Blocker Plugin conclusions.
Adding a WordPress VPN blocker plugin to your website can greatly enhance your ability to control access to it.
So if you’re having problems with bad actors registering under multiple user accounts on your WordPress website whether that’s a gaming site, ecommerce site, forum etc. many times they will use a VPN to register as a new user and cause mischief all over your website.
By blocking VPNs from accessing your WordPress website you can greatly reduce this type of behavior and help you save a lot of time in the process from having to individually manage users as well as their IP addresses etc.
In addition, using a VPN blocker plugin can help you if you have problems with bots.
Although other WordPress security measures are quite effective at blocking bots, many times bots will also use multiple IP addresses under VPNs in order to attack your WordPress website as well.
So using a VPN blocker plugin may actually give you an added layer of protection against unwanted bot traffic as well.
Although using a VPN blocker plugin isn’t necessarily the first or even the best solution to unwanted bot traffic, it can be a solution and in combination with other security measures that you should already be taking, give you a bonus level of security.
In the end, if you want to protect your WordPress website from bad actors, control spam and malicious activity from nefarious characters registering on your WordPress website multiple times in order to get around your security measures, using a VPN blocker plugin is a must.
Check out the ones I have listed above and take them out for a spin.
You may be surprised at how much they can help protect your WordPress website from having multiple users registering on it.
