Forticlient - WebFilter retrict Youtube content access

[MihaFarc]

Hello,

Recently Forticlient WebFiltering started to block my access to Youtube content
This behavior appears on both FortiClient 6.0.2.x but also to latest version: 6.0.9.0277

Once WebFilter is activated, the Youtube content restriction checking site (https://www.youtube.com/check_content_restrictions)  shows that DNS Restrictiction is in place for a number of sites:

Check YouTube content restrictions on your network

	DNS restrictions	HTTP header restrictions
www.youtube.com	Strict	-
m.youtube.com	Not available	Not available
www.youtube-nocookie.com	Strict	-
youtube.googleapis.com	Strict	-
youtubei.googleapis.com	Strict	-

In Youtube user sees this message (missleading I might say!):

"Video unavailable

This video is restricted. Try signing in with a G Suite account."

As soon as I stop WebFiltering this behavior dissapears.
Webfiltering has no Category enabled for filtering - is just powered on with no additional restrictions.

Q1: is there any way to keep WebFiltering ON and NOT to have the above behavior?
Q2: Above report (DNS Restriction = strict) can be obtained only of for any DNS querry for the sites listed, the DNS response is a CNAME toward restrict.youtube.com (this is what Youtube say!). How come that once I activate WebFilter this impacts DNS queries? Or is this misleading (the content check from youtube)?

Thanks a lot!

[JiteKuma1]

DNS filtering, which works great (properly enforces SafeSearch over SSL/TLS without requiring a local certificate to be installed.
 
However, when Safe search is enforced, YouTube restrictions must be set to "strict" or "moderate". Even moderate YouTube restriction blocks LOTS of videos that aren't in any way problematic.

Hope the issue will resolve with this :) .

Thanks,
Jitendra-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 01-29-2020 15:20
From: Mihai Farcas
Subject: Forticlient - WebFilter retrict Youtube content access

Hello,

Recently Forticlient WebFiltering started to block my access to Youtube content
This behavior appears on both FortiClient 6.0.2.x but also to latest version: 6.0.9.0277

Once WebFilter is activated, the Youtube content restriction checking site (https://www.youtube.com/check_content_restrictions)  shows that DNS Restrictiction is in place for a number of sites:

Check YouTube content restrictions on your network

	DNS restrictions	HTTP header restrictions
www.youtube.com	Strict	-
m.youtube.com	Not available	Not available
www.youtube-nocookie.com	Strict	-
youtube.googleapis.com	Strict	-
youtubei.googleapis.com	Strict	-

In Youtube user sees this message (missleading I might say!):

"Video unavailable

As soon as I stop WebFiltering this behavior dissapears.
Webfiltering has no Category enabled for filtering - is just powered on with no additional restrictions.

Q1: is there any way to keep WebFiltering ON and NOT to have the above behavior?
Q2: Above report (DNS Restriction = strict) can be obtained only of for any DNS querry for the sites listed, the DNS response is a CNAME toward restrict.youtube.com (this is what Youtube say!). How come that once I activate WebFilter this impacts DNS queries? Or is this misleading (the content check from youtube)?

Thanks a lot!

[MihaFarc]

Sorry, but what exactly should I change (apart of keeping Web Security disabled all time) in order to eliminate the above described behavior?
There is not much to do at config level: whitelist does not solve this, putting all Web Categories in Allow mode neither...

Can you be a bit more explicit?
Thanks!

[joe_FTNT]

Hello Mihai,

When Safe Search is enabled in FortiClient, it will modify the HOSTS file and add entries that will force the browser to 'safe' versions of the supported Search Engines as well as the restricted version of YouTube.

You may disable Safe Search in FortiClient which will remove the HOSTS file entries. At this time, FortiClient does not allow granular management of YouTube Restricted Mode and enables only the 'strict' setting. In future we hope to make this more granular and allow for 'moderate', 'unrestricted', and 'can approve videos'.

[JiteKuma1]

Mihai,

 Security Profiles > Web Filter, scroll to Search Engines and enable Restrict YouTube Access. You can select either Strict or Moderate level of restriction. Your FortiGate must be in proxy mode.

please disable the Restrict YouTube Access option.

Thanks,
Jitendra

[MihaFarc]

FortiClient 6.0.9.0277

Does not have this feature available: to Enable/Disable "Restrict Youtube Access"