How to bypass the block on Vimeo and ThePirateBay
‘Someone’ has gone full retard and blocked not only isohunt, thepiratebay and torrentz.eu (among other torrent sharing sites) but also Vimeo. While there is a lot of noise about it being the DoT, they seem not to have made an official statement about this.
Whoever it is, they clearly have a peerless grasp of cyber-law (a term which instantly makes the one using it sound like they know nothing about the subject at hand) and a keen eye for spotting security and piracy risks before they actually become risks - why else would you block vimeo? And why vimeo but not youtube?
If, for some reason, your faith in the judgement of the powers that be is wavering, here’s some quick ways you can get around their ‘ban’.
( Before we begin, a friendly reminder: Do not do anything that anyone on the internet tells you to do without doing some research for yourself first. You are the only one responsible for your actions online. )
Option 1: Use “Https”
I’m as surprised as you are that this works. I didn’t even think to try it until it was pointed out to me by a colleague. Prepending the url of the site you are trying to access with ‘https’ instead of ‘http’ will force your browser to access the site via an ssl encrypted sesison.
Depending on the nature of the block, this will sometimes allow you to bypass the filter set up by the ISPs. (This is currently working on https://thepiratebay.se but not for https://vimeo.com)
Option 2: Use a proxy
A proxy is a layer of software which sits in between your computer and the sites you are trying to access. It prevents them from knowing your location, IP address, etc. Basically making you an anonymous user and therefore rendering country specific blocks invalid.
You can find a list of proxies here and here (or just Google it). It’s a good idea to change proxies once in a while.
Option 3: Use TOR
The Onion Router is a free software bundle that sets up a VPN and anonymizes all your activity online. You can download the bundle for free and it runs on windows, mac and linux. It also comes with a web browser built in that prevents others from accessing your browsing history, preferences and search / form history.
These are listed in increasing order of their effectiveness. If anybody reading this has more / better ways of accomplishing this, please feel free to put them in the comments below.
