GregLedet.net Adventures in networking, security, and other things

How to get past the new isoHunt Lite and get to the old original site

If you are a torrent hound like some people, you have probably noticed that on April 5th, isoHunt changed the site for US users.  This REALLY sucks because it basically takes away your filtering capabilities and the ability to view the comments on the files.  The thing is, isoHunt is my favorite .torrent search engine and I want my old isoHunt back!!!  Well, if you're like me and you want the old isoHunt back, here's how you can do it.  This also works on TorrentBox.com and any other site that blocks US users.

1. First off, you should already have a copy of Firefox installed on your computer.  If you are only using IE, you have problems that I can't solve in a simple blog post.  Go get Firefox and get it installed.  If you have it installed already, go to step 2.

2. We need to download a Firefox Add-on called FoxyProxy.  You can find it at http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/ or you can skip straight to it by clicking here.  Add FoxyProxy to Firefox.  You'll need to restart Firefox after you install it.

3.  You'll notice at the bottom right corner of Firefox that FoxyProxy is Disabled.  It'll look like this: Go ahead and click on that or you can go to Tools -> FoxyProxy Standard and it will open the next window (click for bigger version):

4. Now we need to add some proxies.  I like to use xroxy.com to find my proxies.  One reason I like it is because you can setup the proxies with a single click.  I'll show you how to do both. We need to find a proxy to use that will get us past the isoHunt lite and to the main site.  To do this you can use proxies all over the globe.  For this how-to, I'll use a proxy in Canada. I suggest that you try out various proxies until you find one that works best for you.  I've used proxies in Canada, the UK, and many other countries, it just so happens, that Canada seems to be the fastest for me.

5.  At xroxy.com you need to click on "By Country" or click the picture below:

6. Click "Canada" in the list on that page to bring up the list of all Canadian proxies.  Once there, there's 2 ways of setting up a proxy in FoxyProxy, manually or automatically.  For the auto setup, just click the FoxyProxy icon next to the proxy: .

7.  To setup a proxy manually, there's many different how-to's out there that can be found in the help section of FoxyProxy's website. There's one with screenshots for an older version of FoxyProxy, and there's one written by FoxyProxy on how to configure the software.

8.  Once you have the proxy setup, you need to tell the software how to use it.  For the sake of simplicity, you can simply right click on the "FoxyProxy:Disabled" and tell it "Use proxy 'XROXY Proxy' for all URLs".  You can also setup patterns for that proxy to use.

9. To setup patterns, double click the XROXY Proxy from the main screen in FoxyProxy.  Click on the URL Patterns tab and Add New Pattern.  When the screen comes up, enter the following:

Type the URL EXACTLY like I did with the /* behind it to use as a wildcard.  If you don't do this, only the main page of isoHunt will go through the proxy and all the search pages will kick back the Lite version.  Click OK and you'll have setup the pattern.  Now you can tell FoxyProxy to "Use proxies based on their pre-defined patterns and priorities".  Once you do that, all traffic going to isoHunt will pass through the proxy and all other traffic will go straight to the internet without going through a proxy.

Once you're back to the main isoHunt site, you're good to go.  I highly suggest using µTorrent as your client and I would definitely download PeerBlock to use block unwanted traffic.  Once you have PeerBlock installed, you can get your lists from iBlockList.com to stop all those evil people that you don't want accessing your network. If you want to surf anonymously, you can download Tor, but that will really slow you down.  Onion routers like Tor will bounce your traffic all over the world before it finally makes it out to the cloud.

That should be all you need to know to get back to the main site of isoHunt.  We really shouldn't have to take such measures simply to view a website.  We need to support net neutrality and tell our lawmakers that we will NOT be censored, and if they do, we will simply find a way around them.

P.S. For all those Canadians living in the US and would like to watch shows like Canada's Worst Driver but can't, you can use this same method.  Make sure you use a Canadian proxy.