21 April 2013

Guide on Accessing Banned File-Sharing Sites in UK

Within the past few years the United Kingdom has been doing everything it could to tackle piracy. Finally, the country’s High Court forced ISPs to block access to the most popular torrent index in the world, The Pirate Bay, and a few other file-sharing services, including Kat.Ph, H33t, and Fenopy. Although ExtraTorrent remains accessible, the situation may change, and this guide will help you in case of need. The UK residents willing to keep accessing their favourite file-sharing sites can use a number of alternatives to do so.

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1. The Onion Router (TOR)

TOR is a complex system allowing you to hide your true IP address via various online layers of anonymity, and this is why it is called Onion. As far as security is concerned, you don’t need to worry, because your data will be encrypted and re-encrypted many times, plus it will be sent via a succession of TOR relays. If you want to install and try TOR, visit https://www.torproject.org/ and download the app, which works on almost any OS – Windows, Apple and Linux/UNIX. Extract the archive and open the extracted folder to start browsing by double-clicking the “Start Tor Browser” executable. After you do so, you’ll see another window (the Vidalia Control Panel), together with an Internet browser demonstrating which IP address you’re currently using. In addition, the Vidalia Control Panel offers you a lot of features, like establishing your connection through TOR and appearance. You can also install the Torbutton for easier access.

2. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

In short words, VPN service is a private network which enables virtual encrypted connections that are hidden from prying eyes. It works by routing all of your Internet traffic via remote servers from all over the world. Basically, it’s a proxy service, but with more hip.

3. MAFIAAFire

MAFIAAFire is a plugin for Firefox and Google Chrome, which allows users to access portals that are either blocked or seized. Basically, it is an Internet browser redirector – in case a domain name of the website is seized, the plugin will search for similar domains and redirect you to a working one.

4. TorrentProxies
This is the easiest way of circumventing the blockage – just visit http://torrentproxies.com/ and choose any of the proxies listed there.

5. Direct IP

There are two ways to access a website: you either type in your browser’s address bar the usual address, like extratorrent.com, or the domain’s IP address. But first you have to find out which is it by either looking on the Internet for such a service, or finding it yourself by going to the Command Prompt in Windows and pinging the desired address (example: ping extratorrent.com, and you will see the number between the brackets as the website’s IP address).

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