Proxy & VPN Blocker FAQ
What is proxycheck.io?
Proxycheck.io is a simple, accurate and reliable API for the detection and blocking of people and bots using Proxies, Tor & VPN servers.
I use a Caching Plugin and find that this plugin does not function fully, why is this?
It is important to note that if you are using a WordPress caching plugin (eg WP Super Cache, WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache and many others), that these will prevent the Proxy or VPN from being blocked on the selected pages in your 'Block on selected pages' list.
Also, if you are using 'Block on all pages', the caching plugin will likely serve the visitor a static cached version of your website pages. As the cached pages are served by the caching plugin in static HTML before plugins like Proxy & VPN Blocker can run, the code for Proxy & VPN detection will not run on these cached pages.
It may be possible to correct this by excluding the pages you wish to block Proxies/VPN's on by adding these pages to the excluded list within your cache plugin. Alternatively, some caching plugins have the option of 'late init' which allows other things like Proxy & VPN Blocker to run, but this does defeat one of the main purposes of having a caching plugin.
This won't affect the normal protections this plugin provides for commenting on posts, ping-backs, but also Log-in and Registration if these pages are standard WordPress pages, though this should not affect the actual login/registration process.
It is known that Proxy & VPN Blocker works with web servers running LiteSpeed/OpenLiteSpeed providing that the plugin "LiteSpeed Cache" is also installed within WordPress.
I think my API Key query count appears lower than it should be.
proxycheck.io CDN (Content Delivery Network): proxycheck.io uses a CDN and some API responses may be served by this, your API key query count may not be as high as reality because CDN cached queries are not counted. You can now see a live Queries Per Second graph under the 'Stats' tab on your proxycheck.io dashboard.
If you check the same IP Address more than once within the specified time period the first check will come from proxycheck.io servers but subsequent checks will be delivered from the CDN cache. Below are the different cache times for different account types.
| Plan Level | CDN Cache Time | Cache Type |
|---|---|---|
| Unregistered users | 60 seconds | Shared |
| Registered; Free plan | 10 to 60 seconds | Unique |
| Registered; Paid plan | 10 to 60 seconds | Unique |
Also please note when setting your API Key the CDN caching becomes customer unique, this means you will not receive another customers cached data at any time. Registered users have the proxycheck.io Adaptive Cache feature enabled at all times which alters your CDN cache time between 10 and 60 seconds dependant on how unique your queries were over the previous five minutes.
Users of NGINX Web Servers with NGINX Caching Enabled: It is possible that NGINX Caching is enabled on your server and that it is configured to cache the result of requests made via GET to remote resources, this would include requests made to API's like proxycheck.io.
This would not affect the operation of Proxy & VPN Blocker but your query count could appear to be much lower than reality and your detection log on proxycheck.io may be missing entries because NGINX would have served the response from its cache on your server.
The cache time may vary depending on server configuration, but it is believed to be ten minutes by default. if the IP stops hitting the Proxy & VPN Blocker protected resource then the Cached API response will be dropped when the cache expires and a new query will be made to proxycheck.io for that IP if it starts accessing the protected resource again.
In any case, the cached responses will be specific to a particular IP Address check and only if this IP Address is generating a lot of hits to your Proxy & VPN Blocker protected resources. This could be beneficial to you, as it will save on your API Key query usage.
I tested with a web proxy website and found that my website was still accessible, why might this be?
Some proxy sites are detected as VPN's due to the way they have been set up by their owners. You could try enabling VPN detection in Proxy & VPN Blocker and you can also make use of the Risk Score checking feature, so that only the most dangerous VPN's are blocked, while less dangerous VPN's can be let through.
I accidentally locked myself out of my site by blocking my own country/continent, what do I do?
The fix is simple, upload a .txt file called disablepvb.txt to your WordPress root directory, PVB looks for this file when the proxy and VPN checks are made, if the file exists it will prevent the plugin from contacting the proxycheck.io API. You will now be able to log in and remove your country/continent in the Proxy & VPN Blocker Settings.
Remember: If you ever have to do this, delete the disablepvb.txt file after you are done! If you don't remove it, the plugin wont be protecting your site.
What about the privacy of my website users?
Proxy & VPN Blocker sends the IP address of visitors connecting to your website to the proxycheck.io API to be checked for recent or ongoing Proxy activity or whether it is a VPN or Datacentre provider. This is necessary for the check to be made. No other information about your site visitors is transmitted to proxycheck.io.
The Plugin developer has no access to this information. Please refer to the proxycheck.io Privacy Notice and GDPR Compliance pages for further information.