Re: Can anyone reach softbytelabs.com from cable VM in UK?
 

If any VM cable users with 92.x.x.x addresses experience similar problems with other websites, try setting your browser to use a proxy server such as webcache.virginmedia.com:8080

This has provided me with a temporary workaround to the real issue.

Re: Can anyone reach softbytelabs.com from cable VM in UK?
 

Turns out that softbytelabs.com blocked my IP address because I allegedly attacked their web and mail server by downloading all their shareware over 40,000 times, and sending them more than 100,000 spam emails, all in a 4-day window!

Assuming that I was still allocated the same IP address during this period (a reasonable assumption as my external IP address has not changed since the VM engineer installed my modem) and that the traffic did not originate from my home (my hardware firewall logs support this) I guess softbytelabs.com were the target of a denial of service attack from someone spoofing my IP address.

Anway, belt and braces, I've run Lavasoft Ad-Aware and Spybot Search&Destroy scans just in case (results were negative, of course).