X/Y answer: Provide an alternative that does not rely on the website.
(Should I cross-post this to another Stack, and if so, which one would be appropriate?)
How can my mother's neighbor regularly upload documents pertaining to their apartment in Moscow to www.mos.ru while at home in Germany?
The problem: www.mos.ru cannot (apparently) be opened from Germany. Once per month they have to
- reach the page
- log into their account
- enter the data
What I tried:
- Chrome generates an ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED without VPN, Edge simply never gets a response.
- These VPNs offer russian servers for free (at least time-limited): VeePN, CyberghostVPN. I tried both and the page does load - sometimes - but runs into timeouts; logging in does never work as requests get terminated from the server side.
- https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/mos.ru shows the site as down, but a phone-called person in Russia told my neighbor that, right then, they could open the page and log in normally.
- https://issitedownrightnow.com/status/mos.ru also shows a 'Country' wherein the server is situated, when checking a page.
- With VPN off this is 'unknown'.
- With VPN set to Russia, it lists 'United States', which is most decidedly not the correct output.
Unfortunately, while I am the local "ask about computer issues" guy, I have never before had to use a VPN (outside of preconfigured corporate intranet gateways). It is not clear to me whether any of these steps is even sensible to solve the issue:
- use a VPN
- select a server in Russia
Unlike said neighbor, I also do not speak (or read) Russian or even Cyrillic, so I cannot search for alternative means (which might well exist - the administration of Moscow is surely aware of the situation and surely would very much like to continue receiving money from outside the country; they are presumably also well aware that even inside of Russia their availability is allegedly spotty at best, so even the locals would need alternatives to meet their deadlines).