topic Re: Website blocked by Plusnet in Everything else

Website blocked by Plusnet

anthonyburns — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 15:04:55 GMT

Hi,

I'm the owner of the business The Holiday Tracker (www.theholidaytracker.co.uk) and some of our customers are reporting that it's blocked when they try to access it from their home internet provided by Plusnet.

I've tried calling Plusnet to try to find a contact number or email address to try to have this block removed, but I'm getting nowhere. There is no reason at all why we should be blocked, we're an app that helps businesses keep track of their employees' annual leave.

Can you please advise me how I can have this block removed?

Thanks,

Anthony

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

Champnet — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 18:16:58 GMT

For info : as a Plusnet customer I can access your Website on a desktop (ethernet) and an iPad (Wi-Fi)

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

adam945 — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 18:40:23 GMT

Hello @anthonyburns

I second @Champnet - there's no reason we'd block this. Can you confirm whether the user who#s Plusnet Broadband it is has any SafeGuard settings turned on at all?

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

dvorak — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 19:10:46 GMT

Working fine on my plusnet connection too.

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

dvorak — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 19:12:35 GMT

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from ADSL Broadband to Everything Else

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

anthonyburns — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 08:50:55 GMT

Yes, one of them definitely mentioned SafeGuard. There's still no valid reason why the site should be blocked by SafeGuard - how do I go about contacting the SafeGuard team to have the block removed?

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

seebee — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 09:35:20 GMT

FYI - I'm on my Plusnet connection (51.9.x.y) and use Safeguard - I can access that website fine!

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

anthonyburns — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 10:25:22 GMT

Good to know, thanks. So it's either an issue that's only affecting some users, OR it's an issue that is now resolved. I'd still like to know how I contact the team responsible for Safeguard in-case I receive more reports of the issue. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

pjmarsh — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 12:59:15 GMT

My work laptop is blocking it (which is nothing to do with Plusnet). We use Zscaler which is where the blocking is coming from for me, with the error:

Website blocked

Not allowed to browse Anonymizer category

I don't know if that is related to whoever reported it to you originally, either them using a similar product or whatever they are using blocking for a similar reason.

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

Gandalf — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 13:05:29 GMT

Thanks for getting back to us @anthonyburns

I'm sorry to see some of your customers are having issues getting onto your site.

I can see your website is categorised as "Business" in our Safeguard software. If people aren't blocking this category in their Safeguard and can't access your site, let us know here and we can email our products team to investigate further.

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

anthonyburns — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 13:30:41 GMT

I don't know if this is related or not, but I've double-checked with one of the users and they're now reporting that they can't access the site from home and that their browser is reporting ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH.

From the office, using the same laptop and browser, it works fine.

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

Gandalf — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 13:57:56 GMT

@anthonyburns

Can they turn Safeguard off and see if they can get on your site?

If they can, from what I can see there's no "Business" category to block in Safeguard, so as long as they've not added your site to the "Block Websites" list, let me know and I'll raise this with our Products Team.

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

anthonyburns — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 14:58:14 GMT

I'll get them to try that and report back. Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated.

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

Gandalf — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 14:58:49 GMT

Cool. No problem @anthonyburns

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

seebee — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 16:09:24 GMT

To confirm what @pjmarsh cleverly spotted - my works laptop also uses zScaler (effectively a filtering proxy). If my works laptop is on my plusnet connection with zScaler enabled I also get the message:

Website blocked

Not allowed to browse Anonymizer category

You tried to visit:

http://www.theholidaytracker.co.uk/

(and same for the https version)

If I turn zScaler off it works fine on my plusnet connection. So that site appears to be in the "anonymizer" category in whatever list zScaler use. And if that list is shared by other systems that could be the cause for your user's issue.

Re: Website blocked by Plusnet

snadge — Sat, 23 Oct 2021 12:23:06 GMT

works fine on PN on VPN ON or OFF and using 1.1.1.1 DNS servers,

you may have a DNS issue, or a blocklist issue, as due to IPv4 has long run out now, we have tens of millions of websites sharing IPv4 IP addresses with other websites (only sorted out through their website name on the IP), it could be YOUR website is on a server that has a NASTY/NAUGHTY website on it - thus the IP is Blocked by some companies...

as it works off Plusnet, Nord and Cloudflare DNS I don't think it is that - so it is most likely a filter issue as above - get on a website hosting FORUM (https://www.webhostingtalk.com/) and ask on there too, what the possibilities could be?