Virgin blocking sites

[monel]

Just thought I'd ask here if anyone else with Virgin has been having problems similar to mine.

About a month ago I could no longer connect to Demonoid. I thought they must be down, but then a friend who has a dodgy Virgin modem said he could connect. I used a proxy site, and yep, the site was up. Read around on the web and found Virgin have blocked Demonoid before.

Today I was looking into PS2 emulation and found I couldn't connect to the PCSX2 site. Sure enough, I could using a proxy site.

I am quite disappointed with Virgin, have been with them since the Telewest days, but this is rediculous.

[abigsmurf]

Have you tried changing your DNS servers to opendns?

Otherwise your only other option is SSH tunneling.

[monel]

Could you provide me with more information? Is there a downside to any of those options?

Any advice appreciated and thanks for your reply.

[abigsmurf]

You'll need to lookup how to change the DNS settings for your router. It may require you to telnet into it. There'll be guides telling you how.

Downsides are that you're trusting your DNS requests to a third party and also that their servers could be unreliable (openDNS are usually pretty good).

SSH Tunneling is great for anonymous browsing but it costs.

[sj33]

Demonoid works here, are you sure that is the problem?

[monel]

I can't connect unless I go through a proxy so I assumed it was the ISP. Maybe I'm wrong.

[C']

No problems getting onto either the PCSX2 or Demonoid website here either (VM 20MB package).

[monel]

Ive never had problems like this before. I've tried with both IE and Firefox, can't connect to the above mentioned sites, then I try using various proxy sites and connect no problem.

Anyone know what could be the reason seeing as others on Virgin are OK?

Should I give them a ring? I hate calling support.

[Lyris]

I've sometimes had trouble connecting to some sites with the Virgin DNS servers. I don't think it's censorship, just crappiness.

[abigsmurf]

It's worth changing the DNS.

I know Be/O2 have awful DNS servers that were constantly flaking out and changing to openDNS fixed it for me.

[monel]

Thanks for the advice guys, what's confusing me is I never had any such problems during years of being with them since the Telewest/NTL days, and my friend who lives around the corner hasn't experienced these difficulties. Confused.