If you search the web from your company’s office, school or public library, you have probably already realized that many of the most popular or slightly off color web sites have been blocked.
Web sites that have been blocked can include Myspace.com, Youtube.com, your favorite forum and even many entertainment/gossip sites that offer blue humor etc. If you want to take back your web and once again regain full access to the internet, you will have to unblock web sites.
In order to explain how to unblock web sites, it is important to understand how specific web sites first become blocked.
Blocked web sites are usually the result of special software that is loaded onto your computer that works with your internet browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, in which you can adjust the options to allow or block specific web sites.
In addition, when it comes to large computer networks (like the ones you might find at your corporate office or school), a firewall is usually involved and this resource is also used to block specific web sites of the organization’s choosing.
While it is fairly easy to block web sites, unblocking web sites can sometimes be a difficult task to achieve. However, following are a few tips that will definitely level the playing field, giving you the ability to access almost any blocked web site.
Unblocking a web site can be accomplished whether you are at the office, at a school computer or using a public computer at some libraries or internet cafes. In order to unblock a web site you have to some way circumvent or disable the web site blocking software, the web browser or the firewall that is being used to block a web site. There are a few strategies to accomplish this task.
Proxy servers (sometimes called web site anonymizers because they make the computer user anonymous) circumvent filters on the computer or even the firewall due to the way these sites operate. Proxy servers are computers outside your company’s firewalls easily accessed via the internet. They have their own IP address and are able to be controlled via your computer. Your computer connects to a proxy server and the proxy server is the computer that makes the connection with the blocked web site. The proxy server then shows you the contents of the page. You can view the web site and even interact with the web site through the proxy server- even though it is blocked by your computer or firewall. This is achieved because it is not your computer interacting with the web site, but a third party – the proxy server that makes the connection with the blocked site. (For more information, read Proxy servers and web proxies)
Here are some web sites where you can find lists of proxy servers:
How To Change Settings on an Individual Computer:
This tip on unblocking a web site usually only works on individual computers that connect directly to the internet. If you are using a computer on a network connected to a firewall overseen by an administrator – the chances are that this strategy will not be effective.
Obviously if you are an individual computer that has either special blocking software or browser options set to block a specific web site, you may be able to change the setting or disable the blocking software. If the browser you are using is blocking your web site, you will be able to easily change the settings, usually by clicking the tools tab and reconfiguring the options or security tabs located in the browsers. Another work around for a browser that is blocking your web site is to download and use a different browser. For those that have MS Internet Explorer, simply download and use Firefox or vice versa.
For those that are working on an individual computer with special software used to block your web site, you will need to somehow disable the software. You can delete the software, stop the software from loading the next time you start up the computer, or shutdown the software while it is running using the CTRL+ALT+DEL keys (please note: these techniques might not work for all software programs).
In some cases, it is possible to type in the IP address instead of using the URL. The URL is the written web address (e.g., www.mywebsite.com). However, even though we type in letters or words into our browser, the internet and World Wide Web translate these URLs into an IP address such as 99.121.224.67. Sometimes the software or browser will not block an IP, however if your software is able to map the IP address using a reverse DNS look up your site will ultimately stay blocked.
Use URL Redirects:
There are a few web sites that offer URL redirects. For instance, you can create a new URL for the blocked web sites using these redirect services. Once you create a redirect, enter the new URL and have the service forward you to the blocked web site. In certain situations these new URLs are redirected and do not change allowing you to access banned sites. Two types of redirection services include Tinyurl.com and Snipurl.com
There are many tools or services that Google offers that can help you access blocked web sites. Practically every computer allows you to access Google making these strategies quite attractive.
Google Cache:
Instead of going directly to the web site using the URL, go to the home page of Google and search for the web site or web site page you want to access. Once Google shows you the possible choices that are indexed, choose to retrieve the blocked web page using Google’s cache copy of the page. Since these pages are copied into Google’s database, in most cases the site will not be blocked.
Google Mobile Search:
Google’s Mobile search can help one circumvent a blocked site. When Google translates a normal HTML web page into a mobile page it removes certain parts of the web page (CSS scripts and JavaScript’s) it also reconfigures the sites view to make a large page into smaller sized pages. During this translation process, it is possible that many block software programs will not be able to recognize the page as being one that should be blocked.
Google Proxy:
We all know that Google is not specifically a proxy, but it can be used for much more than just searching the internet. Below is a code that uses Google’s language translation tool. When Google translates a web site into a different language it acts as a go-between (similar to a proxy server). The code below which comes from the site www.oreillynet.com will translate any web page into English. Meaning you can translate a web paged in English back to English using Google as a proxy like tool. Just change the URL (forbiddensite.com) with the site that you are trying to gain access to.
http://www.google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.forbiddensite.com
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