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Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

blog.tymscar.com

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Re: Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

#71

Post by muyuu »

bennyp101 wrote: post #9

"Is this overkill for viewing the occasional Imgur image? Probably." From the last couple of weeks of researching some stuff, it makes perfect sense - I keep stumbling across blogs and documentation that uses Imgur, and it's really quite annoying that I can't see the screenshot or image that is being referenced. It hasn't /quite/ hit the point to put something in place, but this is super helpful for the final straw -…

it will certainly not stop at Imgur

also, if foreign servers notice no real loss of traffic because people just circumvent draconian censorship measures from authoritarian regimes, then they can more safely ignore them without real repercussions

the EU seems to be following soon, so it's important that people have readily available tools so the power dynamics change and it doesn't become economically unfeasible to refuse censorship pressures

Re: Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

#72

Post by ww520 »

michaelt wrote: post #69
juntoalaluna wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not why imgur have left though, they didn't want to comply with Data Protection laws.

The "online safety act" introduced mandatory age verification starting in July 2025. The government announced "plans to fine Imgur after probing its approach to age checks and use of children's personal data" in September 2025 [1] Are you telling me those were unrelated? How are you going to fine a website over age checks without the law that requires age checks? [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo

The governments of the countries that dabbling into the "think of the children" laws should build their own "safe" internets for their citizens, walling them in, requiring them to "verify their age" before letting them out of their cages into the Internet.

Re: Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

#73

Post by philjohn »

michaelt wrote: post #69
juntoalaluna wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not why imgur have left though, they didn't want to comply with Data Protection laws.

The "online safety act" introduced mandatory age verification starting in July 2025. The government announced "plans to fine Imgur after probing its approach to age checks and use of children's personal data" in September 2025 [1] Are you telling me those were unrelated? How are you going to fine a website over age checks without the law that requires age checks? [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzxv5gy3qo

Seeing as the investigation was by the ICO instead of OFCOM, yes, very much so. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

Re: Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

#76

Post by bitwize »

slig wrote: post #43
omnicognate wrote: post #25

> Second, even if I installed a VPN on my main machine, what about my phone? My laptop? My desktop? Every device would need the VPN running, and I’d have to remember to connect it before browsing. It’s messy. This is what routers are for. My router (a cheap fanless box with several network ports running linux) is the only thing on my network that knows there's a VPN. I can selectively route whatever I want through it…

> a cheap fanless box with several network ports running linux Do you remember the name of the product?

Qotom is a good chinesium brand for small cheap fanless multi-NIC PCs: https://qotom.net

Re: Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

#77

Post by sunaookami »

What's annoying about this block is that Imgur detects Telegram's server for image previews as coming from the UK but they are in the Netherlands so when someone sends an imgur link through Telegram with the little preview attached you now only get the "not available" image as prevew...

Re: Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

#78

Post by tshaddox »

p0w3n3d wrote: post #75

I wonder how did you overcome https. As I understand the request that goes to rerouted Imgur proxy will have different cert.

Presumably TLS still only happens at the browser and at the Imgur origin server. Everything in between just routes the request without being able to read any of the encrypted stuff. This is no different than using your browser while your computer is connected to the web via a VPN, except that in this case only a small subset of requests go through the VPN.

Re: Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

#79

Post by tshaddox »

qwertox wrote: post #39

> First, I just upgraded to 2.5 Gbps internet and I don’t want to route all my traffic through a VPN and take the speed hit. I have this bandwidth for a reason You don't have to. You create a container which runs openvpn to connect to your vpn provider, and also hosts an ssh daemon. The ssh daemon receives incoming SOCKS5 connections from a firefox portable browser, which has been configured to use the proxy (your Do…

This would have the exact problem mentioned immediately after the paragraph you quoted. Every computer, phone, etc. would need specific setup. The author is clear about their goal:

> I wanted something cleaner: a solution that works for every device on my network, automatically, without any client-side configuration.

Re: Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network

#80

Post by tim333 »

bennyp101 wrote: post #9

"Is this overkill for viewing the occasional Imgur image? Probably." From the last couple of weeks of researching some stuff, it makes perfect sense - I keep stumbling across blogs and documentation that uses Imgur, and it's really quite annoying that I can't see the screenshot or image that is being referenced. It hasn't /quite/ hit the point to put something in place, but this is super helpful for the final straw -…

I've found it a bit harder than I thought to bypass but veepn free with the location set to Singapore kind of works, if slowly.
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