David Welbourn
Vivienne DunstanAnother casualty of the UK Online Safety Act: all interactive fiction (inc traditional parser text adventures) games stored at http://ifarchive.org are currently geoblocked to UK users. IFTF folks are trying to work out a solution, but there is no clue how long that might take. IFArchive holds 30+ years worth of generally amateur/free IF games - a vast number. Including my own. Which I can't play online right now. Not that I want to but it's ironic! #interactiveFiction #OnlineSafetyAct #games
Meanwhile the intfiction forum where this might usually be discussed is still down 36 hours later, after a Linode cloud server outage. Fortunately there is still the IFTF Discord. But it's far from a great situation. #interactiveFiction #cloud
And IFComp is also likely to be affected, including the next competition opening for judging in just over a month. IFTF folk are currently urgently reviewing that. I wonder if I'll be able to play *any* IFComp games this year. #IFComp #interactiveFiction #OnlineSafetyAct #game #IndieGame
Damon L. Wakes@vivdunstan I wouldn't use something like this for anything sensitive (personally, I would NOT sign into my IFComp account through it), but if you just want to play the games then even a free proxy should get around the block: https://www.croxyproxy.com/
(I also don't necessarily recommend this one in particular. I literally searched for "online proxy" and this was the first result. Please consider it less an endorsement of this proxy and more an illustration of just how flimsy the geoblocking is.)
@vivdunstan I'm looking into a VPN as a more long-term solution myself, but I figure it's always handy to know about an option that's free and will work right this minute.
Ruber Eaglenest@DamonWakes @vivdunstan I think it is the way to go. VPN will help bypass this fascism whatever this is
I'm sorry. I'm to angry to be constructive.
Angie B@rubereaglenest @DamonWakes @vivdunstan except the politicians are apparently already thinking (and I use that word carefully) about banning VPNs (or the media are claiming they are)
@fallen_angela @rubereaglenest @vivdunstan That's deeply concerning, but I feel as though it would almost certainly be a disaster on the sort of scale that makes it unfeasible to press on with even if it's thoughtlessly rushed through.
Andrew Plotkin@vivdunstan Yeah, trying to deal with both emergencies at once is not great.
@zarfeblong I'm very very sorry about the UK based hassles you're all having. Albeit at the same time feeling incredibly frustrated as a UK based user! Good luck.
HowToPhil (Phillip R)@vivdunstan Sites and apps should ban the UK, Texas, Idaho, etc and force the people to protest until the laws are removed
EmmaLovelace@emmalovelace No - I can access the archive and browse it, but if I try to download a game or play a game through a "play online" link from IFDB to the IF Archive I get a geoblocked page. That geoblocked page only happens when I try to view/download/play a game file. There is no estimate for how long it's going to take for the IFTF folk to find a solution, or what type of solution they might use.
Jess Robinson@vivdunstan hm, I'm just getting"site redirected you too many times"
@emmalovelace This is the geoblock page that appears if I try to view/download a game file after navigating through the IFArchive hierarchy. http://ifarchive.org/misc/uk-block.html
@vivdunstan I find the web based, free and zero sign up VPN https://www.croxyproxy.com/ very good.
Wulfy—Speaker to the machinesSystem works as intended
Major Denis Bloodnok@vivdunstan I was just looking at that and (on Normal Island) could play games online via Tor.