How To Access Blocked File-Sharing Websites In The UK: Tips & Tricks

[Guest Ethan]

How To Access Blocked File-Sharing Websites In The UK: Tips & Tricks

In the past two years the UK did everything in its power to fight piracy. After numerous efforts, the country’s High Court managed to force internet providers to block access to The Pirate Bay and, recently, to Kat.Ph, H33t, and Fenopy. If you live on the island and want to keep accessing your favorite file-sharing websites, here are some alternatives to consider.

Virtual Private Networks

We’ve often mentioned here, @p2pon.com, what a VPN service is. Here’s the short story, one more time. This is a private network that enables virtual encrypted connections hidden from prying eyes by routing all of your internet traffic through remote servers from across the globe. It’s basically a proxy service, but with more hip. Consider our list of virtual private networks here.

TOR

The Onion Router is a complex system that helps you hide your true IP address through various virtual layers of anonymity – thus the name. As far as security is concerned, you need not worry. Your data is encrypted and re-encrypted numerous times, and sent through a succession of Tor relays. To install and use Tor is quite easy. First you need to go to https://www.torproject.org/ and download their application (it works on basically any operating system – Windows, Apple, Linux/UNIX). Then extract the archive anywhere you like. Simply open the extracted folder and start browsing by double-clicking the “Start Tor Browser” executable. You will notice that a separate window opens up (the Vidalia Control Panel), along with an internet browser that shows which IP address you’re currently using. Furthermore, the Vidalia Control Panel comes with plenty of features, from establishing how you connect through TOR, to appearance and other advanced settings. Also, you can install the Torbutton for easy access.

MAFIAAFire

This one is a plugin for Firefox and Google Chrome that helps you access websites that are either being blocked or seized. It’s basically a web browser redirector; if a domain name is seized, the plugin will search for similar domains. To install MAFIAAFire, you just need to go to their website here.

TorrentProxies

It doesn’t get easier than this. Just go to http://torrentproxies.com/ and pick your choice from a very long and useful list of proxies.

Accessing Through Direct IP

Instead of typing in the usual address of let’s say The Pirate Bay, you can instead use the domain’s IP address. To find out which is it, you can either look on the web for such a service (example: http://www.hostip.info/) or find it yourself by going to the Command Prompt (Windows OS) and just ping the web address (example: ping www.thepiratebay.se, where the number between the brackets is the website’s IP address).

[Guest Makoto]

Thanks for your tips mate. Will help others.

[Guest Mellow]

thanks you great tips, mate.