A Complete List of Sites That Are Banned In The UK


Sites That Are Banned In The UKPin

Here’s a quick and handy list of all the file-sharing sites currently banned in the UK, including when they were banned and why…


Websites Currently Blocked / Banned In The UK

Reasons for Blocking

  • Copyright: 95%
  • Counterfeit goods: 4%
  • Other: 1%

Key Findings

  • Most blocks implemented for copyright reasons
  • Peak blocking occurred in 2014 with 93 sites
  • File sharing and streaming sites are primary targets
  • Major content industry players (MPAA, BPI) often behind court orders

Types of Blocked Sites

  • File sharing
  • Streaming
  • Torrent sites
  • Ebook sharing
  • Counterfeit goods
  • Scientific article sharing

List of Blocked Sites (Sample)

  • The Pirate Bay
  • KickassTorrents
  • EZTV
  • PrimeWire
  • Putlocker
  • Megashare
  • BitTorrent
  • LimeTorrents
  • RARBG
  • IsoHunt
  • Demonoid
  • TorrentZ
  • ExtraTorrent
  • YTS
  • Popcorn Time
  • SolarMovie
  • 123Movies
  • FMovies
  • Couchtuner
  • Watch Series
  • Movie4k
  • Putlocker
  • Sci-Hub
  • LibGen
  • Bookfi
  • TinyZone
  • Soap2day
  • NSWROM
  • Get Into PC
  • SoftProber

Of course, with a good VPN you can get around all of these blocks. This is the main reason why VPNs continue to be so popular with internet users.

Back in the day, file-sharing was a huge internet trend. Things kicked off in earnest with Napster which was subsequently sued by Metallica’s Lars Ulrich. Napster closed its doors in 2001, just three years after its initial release.

But this was just the beginning. Napster was about music; but the most popular file-sharing sites that followed it were focussed on film and TV shows, which drew the ire of America’s film and television industry – and these are not guys you want to mess with.

Like the USA, the UK takes copyright infringement very seriously. If you’re caught using a file-sharing site to download and/or view illegal content, your ISP will report you to the authorities and you could receive a heavy fine or even prison time.

Faster Internet Speeds Means More Online Piracy

Is 123movies SafePin

In the early 2000s, internet speeds were pretty rubbish. I remember using Napster when it first came out; it took around 10 minutes to download an MP3 file. By 2008, though, things had changed. Broadband was readily available in most homes.

And with the rise of 5G broadband, internet speeds are just going to get faster and faster between now and 2030.

And broadband speeds meant faster download and, importantly, enough bandwidth to stream content, often in 720p or 1080p. Around this time, a plethora of sites began appearing online – sites that streamed new movies and TV shows.

You also had an array of file-sharing, P2P sites powered by torrents like PirateBay and Bittorent which meant you could download terabytes of illegal content direct to your home network and view it whenever you liked. Add in things like media servers for your home and it is easy to see why millions of people got hooked to downloading content illegally.

The Great File-Sharing Crackdown

In and around 2013, things really hotted up for file-sharing sites. The UK government, in conjunction with ISPs, began banning file-sharing sites left, right, and center. As you can see in the table below, nearly all major file-sharing and P2P sites were banned between 2013 and 2016.

Site name (s)Type of site (s)Reason (s)Was blocked byImplementation date
The Pirate BayFile sharingCopyrightBPI court orderMay 2012
Fenopy
H33t
KickassTorrents
File sharingCopyrightBPI court order[24]March 2013
Movie2kFile sharingCopyrightBBFC court orderMay 2013
Download For AllFile sharingCopyrightMPAA court orderMay 2013
EZTVFile sharingCopyrightMPAA court orderJuly 2013
First Row SportsStreamingCopyrightPremier League court orderJuly 2013
1337x
Abmp3
BeeMPS
BitSnoop
Bomb-Mp3
eMp3World
ExtraTorrent
File Crop
FilesTube
Monova
Mp3 Juices
Mp3lemon
Mp3 Raid
Mp3skull
New Album Releases
Rapid Library
Torrent Crazy
Torrent Downloads
Torrent Hound
Torrent Reactor
Torrentz
File sharingCopyrightBPI court orderOctober 2013
PrimeWire
Project Free TV
Putlocker
Vodly
WatchFreeMovies
File sharingStreamingCopyrightMPAA court orderNovember 2013
Solar Movie
Tube +
StreamingCopyrightMPAA court orderNovember 2013
MegashareStreamingCopyrightMPAA court orderMarch 2014
bittorrent
Bit Torrent Scene
BTDigg
Btloft
limetorrents
nowtorrents
Pick Torrent
Seedpeer
torlock
Torrentbit
Torrentdb
Torrent download
Torrent Express
Torrent Funk
Torrent Project
Torrent Room
Torrents.net
Torrent Us
Torrentz.cd
Torrent Zap
Vitorrent
File sharingCopyrightBPI court orderOctober 2014
BitSoup
Cucirca
Demonoid
Heroturko
Ice Films
IP Torrents
Isohunt
Iwannawatch
Iwatchonline
Los Movies
Movie25
Rapid Moviez
RARBG
Scene Source
Seventorrents
Stream TV
Sumotorrent
Tor Movies
Torrent Day
torrent.cd
Torrentbutler
TorrentBytes
Torrenting
Torrents.fm
Torrentz.pro
Vertor
Warez BB
Watchseries-online
watchseries.lt
watchseries.to
YourBittorrent
File sharingCopyrightMPAA court orderNovember 2014
Bursalagu
Fullsongs
Mega-Search
Mp3.li
Mp3Bear
MP3Boo
Mp3Clan
Mp3 Monkey
Mp3Olimp
MP3s.pl
Mp3soup
Mp3Truck
Musicaddict
My Free MP3
PlixidRnBXclusive
STAFA Band
File sharingCopyrightBPI court orderMarch 2015
AvaxHome
Bookfi
Bookre
Ebookee
Freebookspot
Freshwap
Library Genesis
Ebook file sharingCopyrightThe Publishers Association court orderMay 2015
Couchtuner
MerDB
Putlocker
Putlocker Plus
Rainierland
Vidics
Watchfree
Xmovies8
Members of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America)May 2016
123Movies
GeekTV
GenVideos
GoWatchSeries
HDMovie14
HDMoviesWatch
TheMovie4U
MovieSub
MovieTubeNow
Series-Cravings
SpaceMov
StreamAllThis
WatchMovie
StreamingCopyrightMembers of the MPA (Motion Picture Association of America Inc)October 2016
Couchtuner.fr
Couchtuner.video
FMovies
MyWatchSeries.ac
SockShare
WatchEpisodeSeries.com
WatchSeries.do
WatchSeries-Online.pl
YesMoviesYify-Torrent
Streaming and File SharingCopyrightTwentieth Century Fox Film CorporationNovember 2017
A Complete List of All The File Sharing Sites Banned In The UK

The Rise of VPNs & Sites Like 123movies And Putlocker

The UK government issued its plans on how it was going to tackle online file-sharing and illegal P2P networks in 2009 – you can read the full thing here. This irked a lot of internet users; they saw it as a massive overreach by the government.

At this time, VPNs started becoming very popular. With a VPN, you can block your ISP from spying on what you do online. This meant, with a decent VPN, you could access banned sites and continue to download illegal, copyrighted materials without any finding out.

This is the #1 reason why VPNs exploded in popularity between 2009 and 2015; people wanted to continue accessing sites like The PirateBay and other torrenting sites. And because you cannot ban VPNs, the government kind of just had to accept it.

And even when it banned certain file-sharing platforms, mirrors of the platform (cloned versions of the site) would pop up almost immediately. All you had to do was find the new URL for the mirrored version of the site. This is why PirateBay is still active despite its founders no longer being involved in the project anymore.

More recently, a new trend emerged: streaming sites, whereby you could simply stream new movies directly from your browser. The most popular sites of this ilk were Putlocker and 123movies. The latter was closed down officially in 2018 but lives on inside mirrored versions of the site.

Again, these sites – like their P2P counterparts – are blocked in the UK by ISPs at the behest of the UK government. But all you need to get around these blocks is a VPN. Once you have an inexpensive VPN installed on your computer or phone, you can access anything you like. And your history and browsing will be completely anonymous.

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