Who's blocking me from viewing a particular website ?

I have no problems connecting to sites with the exception of one, rapidshare.com. I have a premium account with them and have been downloading a lot recently, but I am not over my download limit with either rapidshare.com or my ISP. This has happened before, but the block disappears after a few hours. If I try to connect to the page, it either fails with an empty page (and no error), or a "Problem loading page timeout error".

If I connect through a proxy (ie. so my IP address is different) then I have no trouble viewing the RS website, so either RS or my ISP is blocking it.

I have a static IP address so either RS is identifying it's me and blocking access, or my ISP is blocking all access to RS servers. Since RS has many servers, then my initial hunch is that RS is the culprit as it would be easier for them to block a single IP address (ie. mine), than it would be for my ISP to identify all the RS servers and block many IP addresses.

Both of them deny blocking me access, so how can I tell if it's RS or my ISP who's blocking me access ?

 

Could a ping to rapidshare show who's blocking you?

 

Good idea SSK.

RS finally admitted they were blocking me, as they said too many requests were being sent and it looked like a DOS attack. When I ping'ed rapidshare.com, all requests just timed out.

As ping uses ICMP, can ISP's block this somehow without affecting anything else ?

 

Sounds like the commonality in this case is a static IP address. Your isp should not care where you connect to. RS does care if you are using a free account.

You may want to try using a proxy changer program when using RS premium. If you must know which one is the culprit try throwing shoe at your front window or just flip a quarter up and do a heads or tails. Quarter lands RS.

 

The problem with using a proxy changer is that I can't get max download speed.

 

Then read the fine print at RS to see if they limit premium users under certain circumstances. If not; complain.