Arr matey, let's circumvent that censorship then get back to business. This rum's not goin' to drink itself

Never one to go gentle into the good night, The Pirate Bay has launched an imaginatively-named web browser, PirateBrowser, for people whose ISP blocks access to the traditional site.

Currently only available on PC, the browser comes without adware, toolbars of "other crap" and is described as a "preconfigured Firefox".

In fact, the browser is a heady mix of Tor client Vidalia, to allow you to browse anonymously, and the Firefox Portable Edition browser, with a bit of FoxyProxy and some customised configurations thrown in too.

Set sail on the censorship

TPB says that PirateBrowser is intended to "circumvent censorship" rather than make it super easy for you to illegally download stuff - "this browser is intended... to remove limits on accessing websites your government doesn't want you to know about" its FAQs explain.

The list of countries that block access to The Pirate Bay is growing, with major ISPs in the UK already ordered by court to stop their customers from being able to use the site.

Other workarounds have prevented this from being particularly successful, though, with TPB claiming record traffic in the days after the blockades went up and ISPs even conceding that the block had done little to stop file-sharers.