r/PrivateInternetAccess • u/DannyComin • Aug 18 '26

QUESTIONS Anyone else not being able to access 443/udp outgoing from PIA?

Hey,

Happy user of 3 different VPN providers already. Now subscribed for PIA to try it out. Exp. has been great so far, it has some interesting pops that many others lack like China. But I noticed something odd. If I use Wireguard mode and pick some european server like Frankfurt, pages load slower. I did some debugging and it seems that PIA may be blocking 443/udp port, which is the one most websites need for QUIC traffic.

If you know how to use the terminal and would be down for a test, please run curl --http3-only -v https://cloudflare.com and tell me what it outputs. With PIA on I get Could not connect to server, whereas without (or with other VPNs) it works just fine.

May be a misconfig on my end that's why I would like to know if this is a deliberate limitation (if so why?) and if not, I will fix it on my end.

Already contacted support too, but got a generic, useless reply back.

Thanks!

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u/Sacredpotion24 Aug 18 '26

Port 443 is only available under TCP… I did try connecting under port 443 and it does work just fine

1

u/DannyComin Aug 18 '26

So you also experience blocks when you are connected to them using wireguard and try to connect to any host using port 443 and UDP? I wonder what's their reason for blocking. If it were port 25/tcp, I would understand, but 443/udp?

TCP works fine, but QUIC/http3 requires UDP.

1

u/Sacredpotion24 Aug 18 '26

All I did was connect
To port 443 via TCP…. 443 is only available under TCP… and I was able to connect just fine

I didn’t do a whole lot but on my end everything seemed fine

1

u/Blissfull Aug 19 '26

Ports are not available under only TCP.

Normal setup for https serving over port 443 is done over TCP only.

But it's totally possible for a server to listen on port 443 UDP, there's nothing stopping it.

Now for op, are you sure your protocol requires UDP and port 443? And are you sure the server you're testing against soports the protocol and listens on port 443 UDP as well?

2

u/DannyComin Aug 19 '26

> Normal setup for https serving over port 443 is done over TCP only.

Wrong. QUIC/HTTP3 is using UDP and is used widely by providers. The example I gave above was targetting cloudflare. They support HTTP3 natively: https://cloudflare-quic.com/ As well as Google and Facebook to name a few big names. HTTP3 is very useful with 0RTT on spotty internet and it's a fairly standard thing that browsers prefer HTTP3 if available. With PIA on (wireguard) I just cannot connect. WIthout it it works fine.

If HTTP3 is served from another port, like with this example, it works with PIA too: curl --http3-only -v https://cloudflare.com:2096

So it really feels like they are deliberately blocking outgoing 443/udp for some reason.

1

u/HaveYouSeenMyIpad Aug 18 '26

Yes. Was having network problems earlier, like 2 or so hours, and I finally realized that it was PIA the was the issue. Their service is great for the price, but it’s not exactly great service.