Can we get an answer why VPN services are not supported by the desktop app (anymore)?

[UnicornDarkly]

Using a VPN service in today's online world is a given if you want to protect your privacy (and I'm not talking about skirting region restrictions, but using a VPN server that's in the same region). Why is it that Spotify does not support VPN (when competitors are able to provide this feature), and furthermore why can't you give a clear answer to this question that has been posed in the community forums multiple times?

From my experience and from reading what others written on the issue, it seems that VPN used to work much better (in my case Freedome worked without any problems for many years), but Spotify has recently taken active steps to block VPN.

Please can you provide a straight answer to your paying customers?

Thanks.

[Alex]

Hi there @UnicornDarkly,

Thanks for your question.

The use of VPN was never supported and recommended on the Spotify Desktop app to begin with. The app itself is not designed to work with a VPN. Licensing agreements and song copyrights vary from country to country, we cannot support VPN as it allows to change location. 

Hope this clears things up. 

Take care!

[vadimm]

This used to work until recently. To get the app to load the contents and stop graying out tracks, I need to disable DNS Proxy, which is part of Cisco Anyconnect VPN. Then it goes back to grayed out after a while.

[AlejaR]

Hey @vadimm,

Thanks for posting in the Community and welcome.

Keep in mind Spotify doesn't officially support VPN. This means that issues with the app while using VPN are expected behavior. As mentioned by @Alex above, the app itself is not designed to work with a VPN.

Take into account we cannot support VPN as it allows to change location. This will imply changes on licensing agreements and song copyrights, and those might vary from country to country.

We hope you found this helpful. We're always here to help.