How to Bypass the Great Firewall of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

The government wants to take away our right to a free and uncensored Internet. Aside from being thick enough to believe this to be possible, they are also completely inept at implementing such policies. Here are a variety of ways in which you can bypass the content filters forced upon the people of the UK.

Essential Tips

  1. Always browse SSL versions of websites to prevent sniffing of your data.
  2. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and TOR have a plugin for Chrome and Firefox which automatically redirects you to the SSL versions of websites: HTTPS Everywhere.
  3. Use DuckDuckGo as your search engine. Google has shifted to heavily personalised search results and that's bad when the government inevitably requests it.

Easy, non-install ways of bypassing filters

One-off web-based proxies

  1. Proxy.org
  2. HideMyAss (enable SSL security for enhanced protection)
  3. Anonymouse (insecure link)
  4. Search for more

Set a proxy in your browser settings

Pick a proxy server from https://proxy.org and set it as your proxy in your browser.

  1. Chrome
  2. Firefox
  3. Internet Explorer (insecure link)

Other Tricks

  1. Translate the website on Google or Bing. This often bypasses rubbish content filters.

Virtual Private Networks (VPN)

Tips

  1. Ensure the company is in a country which protects and values a free and uncensored Internet.
  2. Unfortunately the list of countries is getting progressively smaller. European countries are probably your best bet.
  3. If using a VPN provider with multiple servers, switch your server and country on a regular basis.
  4. Ideally use OpenVPN rather than PPTP or L2TP.
  5. Use a router with OpenVPN support and enable it as a constant connection for your entire home.

TOR

TOR is an open network with the goal of defeating Internet censorship. However it is highly likely that governments run or monitor many of the exit nodes, so keep that in mind when using it. That is, however, likely the case for many other VPN options too.

DIY

SSH Tunnel

If you have a server lying around and want a VPN for a short while, you can set it up as a SOCKS proxy over SSH by running the following command:

ssh -ND 9999 user@some-ip-here

You can then set your proxy settings in your browser as mentioned in the VPN section with a SOCKS proxy on 127.0.0.1, port 9999.

OpenVPN

Quickly set up OpenVPN on your own server or a VPS provider (such as Digital Ocean or GreenQloud by following this tutorial from Digital Ocean.

Use a Secure Router Firmware with VPN Support

If you're using the router provided by a major UK ISP, chances are high that is sucks. Have a look at some of the following router and firewall projects to find a better alternative:

  1. OpenWRT
  2. DD-WRT
  3. pfSense (insecure link)
  4. IPFire
  5. m0n0wall (insecure link)
  6. ClearOS (insecure link)

OpenVPN Providers

Check out this list from TorrentFreak for a list of VPN providers who take privacy seriously.

Change Your ISP

Why not change your ISP to a smaller business which cares about your privacy and provides better customer care than the major providers?

  1. Andrews & Arnold Ltd (insecure link)
  2. Others?

Combine Multiple Solutions

Reduce the chances of anyone defeating your choice of anonymising your Internet usage by combining multiple methods. If you're using an OpenVPN tunnel on your router, why not also use another tunnel on your computer to a different server? It might be slower, but it will be a much greater hassle for anyone trying to track you.

Comments and Corrections

I'll be monitoring the comment threads on the sites where this was originally shared for improvements and feedback. I'm sure you'll understand my reasons for wanting to remain anonymous, given how our country is changing.

Long Live the Free Internet