How to Access blocked web pages?

Is you school, college or office blocking you from getting on social network sites like Friendster, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Hi5, Orkut, etc? Here’s few ways you can bypass the restrictions and surf like normal, but please check with your local authorities before using them. We will not held any responsibility if you’ve breach the regulations of any.

Full list after jump.

Using IP Instead of URL

This depends on the software/application used. Sometimes blocked sites are stored as a list of URLs (eg. www.yahoo.com, www.donwload.com,etc) and typing the IP instead of the URL might sometimes work. In a local computer, doing a ping domain.com command in Command Prompt (Mac users use Terminal) will return you the IP address. You can also do it online via www.whatsmyip.org

Redirection with Short URL service

Sometimes the URL you intend to browse might be ban, but converting them to another a shorter URL with short URL services might just help you to bypass the settings.

Some Short URL service eg:– MooURL, SnipURL

Google Cache

Search engines like Google and Yahoo cache webpages and these cached pages are stored in search engines themselves, which likely will be added to the blocked list. Click on the ‘cache’ will bring you to a cache version of the page, as updated as how Google caches it.

Internet Archive – Wayback Machine

Wayback Machine is a internet service that periodically keeps a copy of almost all websites in the Internet way from the date they’re started. Clicking on the latest copy of what Wayback Machine have should be somewhat similar to the real site. Another way to access blocked sites via caches.

Anonymous Surfing

One of the most popular methods is using aweb proxy. An anonymous proxy server is anintermediate between your computer and the server you are requesting the information. Although this is an easy way it’s not the safest one. Even if the server does not have your information, the intermediate has it so you are not completely anonymous. The advantage of this method is that there are manyfree web proxies available over the Internet.

The most known resource for web proxies is Proxy.org. The list contains proxies all over the world, it’s periodically updated and provides link to specific web proxies in a random order. Due to the fact that the proxies are listed randomly, the chance of getting an over used proxy is considerably decreased. Other important resources of free web proxies are: Hide My Ass,Anonymouse.org, and Proxify.co.uk.

Use Proxy in Browsers

There are tons of sites out there that distributes free proxies of almost any country. Here’s an example. Check out the following methods on how/where to insert proxies in your web browsers.

Proxy Surfing – Firefox

Under Advanced tab, select Network tab, then click inside Connection Settings. Select Manual proxy configuration, put proxy under HTTP proxy.

Proxy Surfing – Internet Explorer

Go to Tools -> Internet Options. Select Connections tab. Click into LAN Settings, check Proxy Server. Insert your proxy URL inside Address.

Bypass with Translations services

Online translation services like AltaVista BabelFish, Google Translate allows you to translate a website from one language to another and display the translated results on their own page.The trick here is to enter the URL (website you’re blocked), retranslate it even if you don’t need to and let Google or AltaVista fetch you the content.

Subscribe to RSS Feed

This might not work for all sites, but if the site you intended to visit provides RSS feeds, you can subscribe and read it with a RSS reader, or have it regularly send the contents to your email

Retrieve web pages via Email

Web2Mail is a free service that sends websites you want to read right into your inbox. All you need to do is send an email to www@web2mail.com with the URL as subject title.

Hide IP Address Software

The second option is to use hide IP address applications. There are simple applications where with a simple click you can enable anonymity, or complex application that allows you to add manually proxies into the list, which will allow you to test proxies in advance and even clean cookies and temporary internet files. To be sure that the application suites your needs you should test the trial first and see how many proxies they have and from which countries.

The most known free hide IP address application is TOR Project. The application suits best to advanced Internet users because the configuration is not very simple. Other applications that are easy to use by anyone are: Ultra Surf, Anonymous Surfing, IP Privacy and Not My IP, Hotspot Shield

VPN Connections

Anotherway used to unblock web sites is through a VPN. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network that is constructed by using public wires to connect nodes. A great advantage of these systems is that they use encryption and other security systems so only authorized users can access the network and thedata cannot be tracked. Hotspot Shield is the most used these days and it’s 100% free. It creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop or iPhone and our Internet gateway blocking snoopers, hackers, ISP’s, or other person from viewing your web browsing activities.

An important aspect that users must take in consideration is that before changing the IP address you must know what type of address your computer has. If you have a static IP address than you have to call your ISP and ask them to change it while if you have a dynamic IP address than you can apply any of the methods above.