How to help your BT Broadband (UK) friends regain access to VGuitarForums

Started by philjynx, October 18, 2020, 02:27:05 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

philjynx

If any of your friends have contacted you because they are on BT Broadband and cannot access VGuitarForums please send them the link below.

I recently got stopped from visiting this site (and only this site).

Admin (Steve) sent me one possible solution which I couldn't use.

The problem turns out to be  BT's Domain Name Server (DNS).

By switching my DNS to OpenDNS (there's also Google DNS if you prefer) I am now (evidently) able to access this site again.

https://www.howtogeek.com/164981/how-to-switch-to-opendns-or-google-dns-to-speed-up-web-browsing/

Cheers one and all.
Thanks Peter for fowarding my problem to Steve.


Edit: The above link shows you how to set your DNS on Windows.
I prefer the following as it is local network wide, you can change your DNS on your router. By changing the DNS on your router, ALL your devices (WiFi connected phones & tablets) will work properly, not just your WinDoze machine.
On my router the setting looks like this (there'll be a similar setup page on any router) - the only entries I've altered are the last two which by default were 0.0.0.0

gumbo

Read slower!!!   ....I'm typing as fast as I can...

admin

Welcome back!

Glad you got it figured out and thank for sharing the solution!


philjynx


ghostofweedon

Hi my ISP is BT in the UK and they've just enabled a feature called BT Web Protect on my account. This blocks sites they think are unsafe and unfortunately vguitarforums.com is one of them it seems (I'm posting this using my mobile data).

The tool doesn't tell you it's blocked or why - you just see a browser error like attached.

I've sent the site to saferbrowsing@bt.com in the hope that they white list it.

The other option is to turn off Web Protect in your account.

More details https://community.bt.com/t5/Broadband-Extras-Apps-from-BT/BT-Web-Protect-Blank-White-page-explained/td-p/2124704

philjynx

Quote from: ghostofweedon on May 22, 2021, 01:06:03 AM
Hi my ISP is BT in the UK and they've just enabled a feature called BT Web Protec.....
It was some time ago that I was unable to connect to VGuitarforums on BT broadband, I'm moderately sure that the connection error you are showing is what I experienced.

As far as I remember it is BT's Domain Name Server (DNS) that is blocking you.

Change either your router DNS to another (non-BT DNS) or, if you are not alllowed to (I gather that is usually the case on BT home hubs) change your network card DNS settings instead.

The reason I was able to change my router DNS is that I have a secondary router not owned by BT which I have full control over.
Both methods of bypassing BT's DNS are in this thread.


EDIT I just disabled my alternate DNS server for a test with the following result:
VGuitarForums did (eventually) show up - it took forever, all other sites (EBay, Amazon, you name it) took ages to arrive.
My conclusion: For BT customers, whether you can or cannot accesss VGuitarForums, change your DNS anyway. The primary and secondary that I use are:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

These are the addresses for OpenDNS