UK Porn Pass is dropped
As of October 2019, the UK government has decided to completely backtrack on its plans to enforce a porn pass system that would have required all British citizens over the age of 18 to provide ID before being able to access online porn. The decision to ditch the heavily criticized idea is believed to have been thanks to the efforts of privacy advocates, who worked tirelessly to stop the government's plans to implement the porn pass system.
While this is a victory for privacy for the time being, it is worth noting that the government could potentially reintroduce the idea at some point in the future. Any parent or guardian who is concerned about online porn is advised to use parental controls to ensure that adult content is not available on their children's devices. These kinds of controls are effective and do not require consenting adults to have their privacy invaded by the government and third parties.
A VPN
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is an online service that lets you pretend to be in a different country. So, you can unblock porn by connecting to a VPN server outside the UK and instantly bypass the UK’s ridiculous pornography blocks. No need for an AgeID porn pass.
A VPN is also a useful privacy tool that encrypts all your web traffic and conceals your location from the websites you visit. This conveniently stops your ISP from knowing what pornography websites you visit. Concealing your real IP address from the websites you visit also means that a VPN also stops the porn industry from tracking your porn viewing habits and creating a database of your sexual preferences.
Check out our in-depth porn VPN guide to find out more about the best VPNs for bypassing the great UK porn block.
Use a Proxy
You can use a Proxy server to get get around the UK porn ban. Proxy services are another tool that allows internet users to pretend to be in a different country. Proxies are available either via websites or as extensions for your browser.
Proxies will allow anybody to bypass UK porn restrictions without registering for a porn pass. However, proxies may slow your web connection down which could cause buffering.
In addition, unlike a VPN, a proxy does not provide privacy benefits. That means your ISP and the government will still know you are watching porn and may be able to block it.
Smart DNS
Depending on how porn sites detect UK residents, it is possible that you will be able to get around porn blocks using Smart DNS. However, Smart DNS does not provide the privacy that a full VPN does, and the cost of a smart DNS service is usually very similar to a VPN.
It is also possible that porn sites may be forced to detect UK residents using IP addresses rather than by checking DNS. If this is the case, smart DNS will not work.
Use Tor
You may have heard the name before, but, what is Tor? Tor onion browser is an online technology that can be used to access porn websites online for free. Tor allows people to gain anonymity online by bouncing them around various volunteer "nodes.” Many people use Tor and a VPN together in order to gain anonymity, however, not all VPNs work with Tor so you will need a Tor VPN service if you want to do this.
The problem with Tor is that it slows down connection speeds substantially. For this reason, Tor is not considered very good for streaming.
Find a mirror site
Once the porn ban goes into effect, it may be possible to find mirror sites of official pornography websites. However, unlike official mirrors, which are full replicas of sites designed to spread traffic across multiple URLs - mirror sites of porn repositories will probably be fakes.
This is because porn websites have agreed to enforce the UK’s porn ban, and a failure to do so could get them a fine. It is true that mirror versions of sites would allow UK residents to access porn for a while. However, it is likely that those would also be spotted and blocked by ISPs if they didn’t adhere to the porn pass system.
For this reason, mirror sites of official porn repositories should probably be viewed with extreme suspicion. Always check for the green lock in the URL bar to ensure you are visiting a safe HTTPS site.
Remember; unofficial mirrors of popular websites could belong to hackers that have embedded malware exploits on the pages. If the site seems low on content or has other telltale signs, the site could be malicious.