Can ISPs Block Websites? Yes, they actually can. If anyone tells you they can’t, they don’t know how Internet connections work.

The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) specifically requires schools and libraries to block or filter Internet access to pictures and material that are “obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors” on computers that are used by students under 17 years of age.

The easiest way to check whether a website has been blocked by your ISP or someone else is to google something like “is it down for everyone or just me.” You should get your answer in the search results. Alternatively, you could also try accessing said website with a different web browser, or even a different computer.

Theoretically, an ISP can block a VPN by blocking IP addresses associated with a certain VPN provider or disabling communication ports. If you’re unable to connect to the internet when using a VPN — your ISP might be restricting the access.

That said, here are our 10 tips to help you bypass ISP blocking of websites on Windows 10:

1. Make use of a VPN.
2. Switch to a public DNS.
3. Use IPs, not URLs.
4. Use proxy websites.
5. Use proxy browser extensions.
6. Utilize the Google Translate service.
7. Try Short URLs.
8. Use HTTPS.

If it is that your ISP is blocking ALL the ports there is nothing you can do about it but call them and ask nicely. Otherwise it is likely an issue with your router settings or application settings.

Why does Virgin Media block certain websites? Sometimes we’re required to block content, meaning you can’t access certain websites or servers using our broadband service. The Internet Watch Foundation can ask us to block a particular website to protect children and our customers from potentially illegal content.

Is My ISP Blocking Torrenting? The easiest way to tell is to try and download a torrent. If there are enough seeders and you don’t get any speeds or get very low speeds, there’s a good chance your ISP is blocking torrenting traffic. Try downloading a direct download at the same time as the torrent too.

As such, many ISPs will throttle your connection—that is, slow it down—if they see you’re using BitTorrent. If they see any BitTorrent traffic, they’ll slow it down—it doesn’t matter whether you’re downloading a legal Linux ISO or Batman Begins. All they care about is that you’re slowing down their network.

Best way would be trying to download a torrent file (with a good number of seeders) and a direct download at a same time. If there is no download rate or very low download rate in the torrent then, it is possible that your ISP might be blocking P2P connections.

What Your ISP Can See. Your internet service provider can’t instantly tell if you’re using BitTorrent, nor can they tell what you’re downloading on it. Most torrent clients have some form of encryption, which makes it harder for ISPs (and your home router) to pin down that BitTorrent traffic.

ISP knows that you are torrenting by seeing the IP address and port number on your internet packets. A high bandwidth consumption also shows file-sharing activities. But, your ISP does not see what files you are actually downloading. Torrenting itself is not illegal, only sharing copyrighted goods is.