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Using /etc/hosts to route around censorship

Censorship being all the rage, and DNS blocking being a popular enforcement method - I thought I'd show you guys a little trick to route around DNS blocking using your /etc/hosts file. We'll be using thepiratebay.com in this example, as it's a frequent target of ISP DNS blocking. Open up your /etc/hosts file from the terminal by typing: sudo gedit /etc/hosts

Add this entry to the bottom of the page:

194.71.107.80    thepiratebay.com    tpb

Save the file, and close. You can now access The Pirate Bay by typing tpb in your browser address bar.