My internet works fine for most websites, but some of them just won't connect. It'll timeout no matter what device or browser I'm using, saying the website "took too long to respond." Oddly, my internet speed is usually around 25Mbps (according to speedtest.net) and I can watch 1080p videos on YouTube without any loading — even while downloading a large file.
Even more odd is that I can access the websites just fine through TOR (which is notoriously slow), a VPN, or my phone's data. This happened all of the sudden about two weeks ago and I've factory-reset my modem a couple times to no avail, which means it's probably not an issue on my end.
I think my ISP is blocking these websites, though I'm not entirely sure. I've done tests for days (different devices, browsers, DNS servers, flushing the DNS, clearing cache, turning off the firewall, etc.) but still can't say for certain. How can I be sure? Other than asking people with the same ISP, which I can't do because I don't know anyone. I don't know if I should list the ISP here over privacy concerns.
Also, what do I do if they are blocking websites? I can connect to them over TOR or a VPN, but I don't trust those with my passwords, and using my phone's data would result in it running out pretty fast. Is there anything I can really do, or do I just have to accept that certain websites are inaccessible to me now? I can't change ISPs because they have a monopoly here...
List of known problematic websites (subject to edit):
- Neocities.org (which includes my own website)
- Mega.nz
- Quad9.net (the website for a DNS server I tested, I had to access it on my phone)
- Rt.com (I don't really care because it's Russian propaganda, but I noticed it was down)
- Libreoffice.org
- Torproject.org (I just used a mirror, joke's on you)
- brandnewtube.com
- projectveritas.com
I don't notice a trend with these websites, but if anyone does, comment down below.
This is all weird to me. I don't really know what to think because I haven't been in this situation before. I thought that, living in the United States, I would never have to deal with this. Thanks for reading, and if you have any advice to give, please do so. Feel free to list out tests I can do, troubleshoots I can try — anything, really.
I hope I'm wrong, but I think my ISP is blocking websites.
UPDATE as of 25 Sep: u/HalJordan left a comment advising me to try to enter the IP addresses into my address bar directly and this was my response. In short I found out that by editing my hosts file I could connect to some of them (though not all) leading me to believe that my ISP is somehow preventing every DNS server I use from giving me the right address for certain websites.
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