A new browser developed by the team behind notorious torrent website The Pirate Bay allows users to access websites blocked by internet service providers. 

PirateBrowser is "a simple one-click browser that circumvents censorship and blockades and makes the site instantly available and accessible. No bundled ad-ware, toolbars or other crap, just a pre-configured Firefox browser," The Pirate Bay explains on its website. 

The browser has been downloaded more than 100,000 times since it was released earlier this week to mark The Pirate Bay's 10th anniversary. 

However, it does not provide anonymity. "It’s not secure to hide your identity," Winston, a spokesperson for the website told TorrentFreak. "PirateBrowser is only supposed to circumvent censoring and website blocking. If we made the browser fully anonymous it would only slow down browsing."

The Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij and three others were found guilty of "assisting in making copyright content available" in 2009

In June the High Court ordered six of Ireland's internet service providers, including UPC, Vodafone and O2 to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. Eircom had already blocked the website under an earlier order. 

The anti-censorship browser is the first of a range of tools The Pirate Bay says it will produce. It is currently developing an application which will allow users to store and distribute The Pirate Bay and other websites on their own personal computers, making it extremely difficult for third parties to block them.