Given the current stature of the constitutional “Rights” and “Freedoms” conferred upon the public in most of the democracies, censorship and bans on trivial matters often come as a surprise. And in the era of the Internet, harassing the general public is even easier. Be it the controversial net neutrality, or restriction to access to specific websites.
If you also feel stifled by the blocked websites then here are some ways to access blocked websites
How to access blocked websites — 10 useful methods!
1. Become Anonymous: Use Proxy Websites
Very often, in a professional environment, the employers draw certain boundaries, restricting your the access to some particular websites. At times, you need a way to access the blocked websites and in those situations, proxy websites act as a rescue method.
On the web, there are hundreds of proxy websites that make your web experience ‘unrestricted’. A proxy website becomes a moderator between the user and server site. The proxy website camouflages the blocked site from the ISPs and allows you to access blocked websites. To get a proxy website for any blocked site, just perform the Google search.
Eg: Facebook Proxy Server. In case, Facebook is blocked in your institution, or you can go to —
http://www.spysurfing.com/
https://www.hidemyass.com/
http://proxify.us/p/ and more…
2. Use VPN
VPN or Virtual Proxy Network allows you to connect your device to a secure connection to another network over the internet. VPN enables you to access blocked websites from your home network and puts your IP address in a land far away. You can also download the apps or open the sites blocked in your country.
VPN acts as a tunnel that converts your data into garbage value that’s difficult for anyone to sniff and recognize. There are tons of free/cheap VPN services that one can use and enjoy an uninterrupted internet experience.
If you are into exploring ways to enhance your computer security, you can also go for the deadly combination of TOR and VPN.
Check out our how to set-up VPN on Android devices without the need of any software. You can also read our detailed article on what is VPN and how it works.
3. Use IP Rather Than URL
The blocked website sometimes are stored as a list of URLs and using IP of the website might work in few of the cases. To get the IP address for any website, you do a ping domain.com command in Command Prompt. Using IP is a simple way to access blocked websites in your region. However, if the website had hidden its IP too, then it won’t open with this method.
All you need to do is run CMD on your computer. Now type “ping www.websitename.com” and press Enter. This will promptly return the IP address. Now enter this IP address in your web browser’s address bar and hit Enter.
4. Change Network Proxy In Browsers
Your college or institute might be having more than one proxy for its network. So, it happens that some websites are restricted on one proxy, but accessible in another. So, you can give a try to proxy surfing to access blocked websites in your college.
Disabling the network proxy settings in our web browsers isn’t a tough task. You just need to find the connections/network option in the settings of your web browser. There, you can select the no proxy option or use another one that’s providing unrestricted browsing at your institution.
5. Use Google Translate
Institutes or even countries sometimes don’t ban Google Translate. So, you can bypass the restriction by converting the blocked website into some other language that you may know. Try Google Translate and see for yourself. It is yet another simple way to access blocked websites.
You can also use Microsoft’s Bing translation service to unblock a banned website.
6. Bypass via Extensions
If the websites that are blocked by your institute or office are dynamic in nature such as Facebook or YouTube, then you should give a try to these extensions. Hola and ProxMate are some extensions that you can use to access blocked websites.
7. URL recasting
There are instances when a particular website is hosted in VPN and it doesn’t have a verified SSL installed. For such websites, you can simply go to the address bar of your web browser and try typing https://www.url.com, instead of accessing www.url.com or http://www.url.com. This change might display a security notice. Press on the Proceed Anyway option and visit the website.
8. Replace your DNS Server
We’ve already discussed this method under a separate topic named DNS Hack. You can simply use this method and bypass the blockade. This method generally involves using Google DNS or OpenDNS for accessing the internet. Here are the detailed steps on the same.
9. Go to Internet Archive — Wayback Machine
Wayback Machine is an interesting service that stores a copy of most of all website on the internet. It saves multiple versions of a website and you can use it to access the past versions of a website. The users can also use it to browse the blocked content online.
10. Use RSS Feed
RSS readers are useful for getting the fresh content and reading them with ease. You can grab the RSS feed of the blocked website and add it to your reader. Just in case that website doesn’t have an RSS feed, there are some useful online services to create the feed.
These are some of the most effective and easy to use methods to circumvent the censorship that has been put on your favorite websites.
