Access Blocked Websites

All of India's major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have blocked access to all leading torrent websites like The Pirate Bay and Torrent Reactor, and even video and link sharing ones like Vimeo, Dailymotion, Pastebin and Xmarks. This is based on a 'John Doe' injunction from the Madras High Court obtained by a film industry outfit in Chennai seeking protection against copyright violations of the Tamil film '3'. The film, somewhat ironically, came to national attention with its internet viral hit 'Why This Kolaveri Di'.


Several ISPs in India have started blocking popular torrent sites like ISO Hunt, Vimeo, Pastebin, The Pirate Bay and Extra Torrent on various ISPs including those of Airtel and Reliance. Users who visit these website on those ISPs will see a message as shown in the image below.

The message reads:
          "This site has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom (DOT)"

The reason for the ban is still unknown and users are flooding Twitter with tweets opposing the ban. If your ISP has blocked ISO Hunt, Pirate Bay or Extratorrent for you, you might still be able to access those sites albeit using some workarounds.

If you are looking to access those websites, you can try out several of the proxies we had listed in our earlier article on how to access blocked websites. Additionally, you can also try out some other failsafe methods to access blocked websites.

Some of the blocks are DNS based (h/t @anantshri) . To overcome this issue you can try out services like Google DNS or Open DNS to access those websites. Read our earlier guide on How to use Google Public DNS on Windows 7 and Windows XP or use a Google DNS helper to automatically change to Google DNS. You can also use a Public Proxy DNS site like http://dnetproxy.appspot.com/.

The Solution to DNS Blocking.

Bypassing DNS Blocking is very easy and even a non-tech savvy user will be able to perform it. We will be using either of these 3 DNS OpenDNS/GoogleDNS/ComodoSecureDNS. Here is how its done,

These instructions are mainly crafted for Windows 7 but except the navigation to different parts, All the rest steps remain same.

Step 1. Open Network and Sharing Center (Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center).

Step 2. Click on Change Adapter Settings. Right click on your Main Adapter > Properties.

Step 3. Click on IPv4 or IPv6 according to your connection > Properties.

Step 4. Change the Preferred DNS server and Alternate DNS Server as follows for the respective DNSs.

For Google DNS:

Preferred DNS: 8.8.8.8
Alternate DNS: 8.8.4.4

For Open DNS:

Preferred DNS: 208.67.222.222
Alternate DNS: 208.67.220.220

For Comodo SecureDNS:

Preferred DNS: 156.154.70.22
Alternate DNS: 156.154.71.22

Step 5. Save the Changes.

IP Specific or IP Range Blocking.

IP Specific blocking happens when your ISP provides you with a Static IP and they are blocking the site to this static IP and IP Range blocking when the ISP gives you a dynamic IP within a IP Range and they block the entire range from accessing the site. These can be blocked by using Proxies or VPNs to access these sites.

Solution to IP Blocking using Proxies.

Proxies can be used to surf and download from blocked sites, There are again two popular types of Proxies.

1. Web Proxy.
2. System wide Proxy.

Web proxy can be useful for surfing and downloading from HTTP sites but might not be useful in downloading torrents as the Proxy doesn’t hide your uTorrent or other Torrent Client’s channel.

Hence using Browser or System wide proxy is useful. Download and use Hide My IP or Easy Hide IP or any other Proxy software to hide your IP and bypass filtering.

PaperBus: Bypass Internet Censors And Blocked Sites

We encounter many blocked websites in corporate offices as well as schools, sometimes due to parental controls. Have you ever wished to break the barrier to browse the websites you like? Well then, this is the opportunity for you. Paperbus is a free app that, if installed, can help you access blocked websites. The app can also bypass internet filters. The most important thing about Paperbus is that this tool can practically make you anonymous to any internet censorship. Paperbus is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux as well.

Let’s suppose you wished to block certain websites  on your computer to set up some parental controls. This tool won’t disappoint. You can also define custom filters to bar access to particular websites.

Tech Geeks Rating : 3.5/5 (Very Good)

Onsite Script Blocking.

This method might not be used by ISP to block your access but since we are talking about Filtering, I couldn’t resist discussing this. These types of filters may be used by sites specific to certain demographics or certain systems only. And they might be using Javascript or other client side scripts to block your access. In this case you can use the following solution.

Solution to Script Blocking.

Its simple. Use NoScript Firefox Addon or NotScript Google Chrome Addon.