If you are getting access to the internet in your school computer lab or at office, I don’t need to tell you what the blocked websites are. Because, at schools or offices most of the social media such as Facebook, and video sharing websites such as YouTube are blocked so that students or employees cannot misuse the internet. There is nothing bad in blocking because, at schools, students are given the computer and internet access for learning purpose. They get access to only those sites that they need while learning. And, at offices, employees may be waste time using social sites. Therefore social sites and other entertainment sites are blocked.
Moreover, if you being a student or an employee want to access social media such as Facebook or other sites which are blocked at office or school or anywhere else, then you can access them by applying some tricks and tweaks.
Internet technology is growing very fast, and when there are restrictions applied from using something on the internet, there are the ways to bypass those restrictions. That’s the beauty of technology!
Sometimes, there are sites that may be blocked in your country for some reasons, and you at some point of time, badly need to visit the site, then you can access them using the methods I am going to talk about.
In this blog post, I am going to share 10 ways to unblock blocked websites to access them. So, without any further ado, let’s check those ways out.
10 Ways to access blocked websites
Use Online Proxy sites
The easiest option available to access blocked websites is using online proxy sites such as kproxy, hideme, zend2, etc. There is a long list of such proxies. You can just open one of these in your browser, and then type the website link in the box, and submit. The proxy will access that website, and you will be able to access that blocked website. For example, if you open Kproxy, you will see the below screen:
You need to enter the website address in the box and click on Surf.
[Alert] => This is the most used method for unblocking a blocked site. However, I prefer not to use sites using proxies where I have to enter my credentials because the proxy owner may see all the credentials that are entered because all the traffic goes through the server.
That is why; if you are using these proxy websites, make sure you don’t enter sensitive information. Use these when you have to visit websites that don’t require logging in. Such as, you can use YouTube to enjoy videos as you can enjoy it without logging in. So, there is no security issue.
Note: Many security guys block proxy sites too at school or office so that you cannot use these to access other sites. In that situation, this trick won’t work.
Use VPN Services
VPN short for Virtual Private Network is a service that offers you private access to the website through a public network. VPN allows you to use different countries IPs so that you can access even those websites which are blocked in your country or blocked by your ISP.
Many free and paid VPN services are there which you can use for your day to day use. There are some sites which are not open for India and only work within the US so being in India, we cannot access that site, but when we use a VPN service, we can pretend that we are browsing from the USA. Thus, we get the access of that particular website.
Recently I have started using Hola VPN’s Chrome Extension which is more than awesome for general use. I use it when I need it.
You need to turn on the VPN by clicking on its icon, enter the site URL, and hit Enter
Then, you will see the screen like shown below:
And, in some time, the website URL entered will be opened in your browser. It will open even if it is blocked in India since you are using US IP through VPN. Similarly, you can use different countries as per the requirement.
Recommended VPNs
- Rocket VPN – Simple Yet Effective VPN App for Android [Review]
- HideIPVPN Lets You Ensure Online Privacy and Anonymity in Seconds
- Cactus VPN Review
- Kepard: Online Security and Freedom at a Bargain
- Hide My IP Review & Features – Here’s why you should use it!
Use Google Translate
Surprised??
Don’t be! Because Google Translate also allows you translate a complete website when you enter the URL. So, at your office or school, if a site like YouTube blocked, just put the URL, and translate it, you will see it opened on the translated page itself!
You can try any blocked site, and you will be able to access in another language. This trick is useful if you know some other language too because if a site is in English, then you have to translate it to another to view it on translate page.
You just need to enter the URL, select a different language, and click on Translate. For example, I entered a video link, selected Hindi, and clicked on Translate. And, the result is as show below:
Similarly, you can try with different websites which are blocked.
Use IP instead of URL
This is a good way to access blocked websites. For example, if Facebook is blocked with its URL, you can get its IP by entering Ping facebook.com in command prompt.
Copy that IP and enter it in the browser. It will open Facebook because it is blocked with URL but not with IP.
This trick works only for the sites which are hosted on a dedicated IP. The sites which are on shared hosting won’t open with IP address because on one IP there are many sites hosted, so you will see an error page only.
Use Google Web Light
Google Web Light is a tool offered by Google for the users who has a slow mobile internet connection. This tool strips down all the CSS and Javascript to make the page lighter, and present to the user. Though it is a tool for accessing the lighter version of a website, it can be used as a potential unblocker tool as well.
Copy the blocked website URL, and paste that just after lite_url= just like shown below:
http://googleweblight.com/?lite_url=https://hulashbarupal.blogspot.com
Do it! And you will be able to access blocked websites.
Use TOR Browser
Tor Browser connects you to its TOR network through which you browser websites. You can download it by clicking here, and once done, install it. Run it and click on Connect which lets you connect with the TOR network. You can now browse any blocked websites easily.
[Potential Downside of TOR] => One problem with this browser is that it is very slow due to that you cannot use it for day to day browsing. But, it can be very useful when you need to use it occasionally to access some blocked sites.
Use Public DNS
In case if a few websites are blocked by your ISP, you can change the DNS of your internet connection, and remove that block. You can use Google Public DNS which will allow you to bypass the block applied by your ISP.
To change the DNS, you need to go to Control Panel [Type Control Panel in run and hit enter to open Control Panel]
Click on “View Network status and tasks”
Now, click on Change adapter settings
Right click on the Network connection in use, and click on Properties
Now, double click on Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IP 4)
Change the preferred and alternate DNS to these Google’s Public DNS
For IPV4
- 8.8.8
- 8.4.4
If you use IPV6 then use these
- 2001:4860:4860::8888
- 2001:4860:4860::8844
Doing this will help you access the sites which are blocked by your ISP as they use their own DNS to block the access to some websites. Once you change their DNS, the block gets removed!
Use a Proxy Server by configuring in your browser
I am using Chrome, so I am explaining how to configure it to use a proxy server.
Go to Chrome Settings
Click on Show advanced settings
Now, under the Network Section, click on Change Proxy Settings
It will open a dialogue box. Click on LAN settings.
Now, you have to Uncheck “Automatically detect settings”, and then check the “Use a proxy server for your LAN”, and in the Address enter a Proxy Server’s IP (I showed x.x.x.x just for example in the screenshot) which you can get from HideMyAss or any other proxy sites.
Save the settings by clicking on Ok, and then Ok again!
Now, when you browse any site using your browser, it will visit the site using that proxy server which means you can access those sites which are blocked for your IP. For example, if you are in India but you setup a Canada proxy server in the browser, you can access those sites which are accessible in Canada but blocked for India.
Use Google Cache
This is not the best way to access blocked websites, but it does work. The thing is that Google Cache shows you the website’s copy which Google indexed last time. You see a copy of that site and not the live one. However, in some cases, it will be a handy tool to see the blocked website. For example, if hulashbarupal.blogspot.com is not opening in your country you can search it on Google, and click on the down arrow=> click cached
You will be able to see a copy of this site. Moreover, you can try with any other site which is blocked.
Use Internet Archive: Wayback Machine
Wayback Machine is a tool that keeps taking the copies of the website regularly so that whenever you want to see a website’s old look, you can use it. Further, you can use it as a potential tool for unblocking blocked websites as well. Since, it keeps the backup copies, enter the blocked site in this tool, and access the latest copy of the site saved by this tool.
For example, when I checked for my site, the last copy it has is of 25th January 2017 which is not too old.
So, the same way you can try checking for some blocked sites as well. You can click on the latest date to view the site.
There are some Wayback Machine alternatives as well which you can check out too whether they help you unblock sites as well.
Conclusion
There are places like School computer lab and offices, many websites specifically the entertainment and social networking sites are blocked. At times, you may need or want to access those sites. In that case, these methods will be great help for you.
They will work for accessing those websites as well which are either blocked in your country or blocked by your ISP.
Which method are you using to unblock blocked websites?
Do share your views and feedback in the comments.
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