How to access blocked websites – Top 10
Before you try out any of the methods listed here, I suggest you install Firefox browser. For faster and smoother internet access, Firefox is the best browser available out there. When you are accessing proxy sites or similar sites ensure that you use Firefox not Internet Explorer.
Internet censoring is now everywhere. In my office Orkut is blocked since there was an Orkut virus scare. Countries such as China, Saudi Arabia etc. routinely block many websites. Interestingly entire blogger.com and similar blog sites were banned in India not long ago. So it is no wonder that many of us are looking for ways to access blocked websites.
Last week I did an investigation into the various methods available for bypassing website access restrictions. I have shortlisted them below as ” Top 10 methods to access banned websites”.
Top Ten methods to access banned websites
1. Use IP address – This is the simplest way to bypass domain name based access restrictions. Instead of the domain name such as www.webstuffscan.com use the direct IP address. To find the IP address use one of the free host to IP online conversion tools such as this.
2. Use Google cache – If you are not bothered whether the content is latest on a site, Google cache is best. Do a Google search for the site and then click on the cached link below the search results.
3. Use an Anonymizer – In this method you access a third party site which in turn routes your request to the required server. Some services provide URL encryption also. The problem is that most of these servers are no longer free. Do a google search for the latest list as this is a very dynamic area 
Following are some services which still works(free!),
Daily Best Links – Hides original URL and provides an array of access of options. The is one of the best free servers.
Anonymouse – This works, but URL is visible and hence may be blocked by the filtering software.
4. Use Online Translation Tools – In this method, we can use the translation service as a web proxy. Following are the best links I know of. Again Google is your best friend for more resources.
Altavista Babel fish – In the above replace www.webstuffscan.com with the site you want. You can also visit Babel fish site.
Google Translate – Similar to Babel fish.
5. Use Google Mobile search – Google mobile search works, but output may not be optimal. This is very similar to using a Web proxy.
6. Use a public Proxy server – There are many free proxy servers out in the Web. Note that in order to use these you have to change internet connection settings in Internet Explorer or whatever browser you use. This is one such list.
7. Get web pages via email – This is useful if you need a single Web page. Obviously accessing large files is not possible. Given below are some examples.
You can use SEND http://www.yahoo.com/ in the body of the message and send it to agora@dna.affrc.go.jp to retrieve yahoo.com home page.
You can also check out services at web2mail which includes web page subscriptions.
G.E Boyd has an extensive list of servers. Note that many in the list are no longer working.
9. Use Tor Distributed Proxy – Tor is an advanced proxy server using multiple anonymous servers for a single Web request. This requires an application to be downloaded and installed.
8. Your own proxy server – This is an advanced technique and is probably the best. This requires your own proxy server hosted either at your home or at a hosting service provider. You can enable SSL encryption and prevent any snooping on the content as well. Also put some access control, otherwise someone can find the service and misuse it (Trust me, there are many who are looking for such an opportunity!).
Use Apache Web server as proxy server – A bit complex setup.
Use Privoxy – – This is the recommended approach. Please see this page for more details.
Use PHPProxy as a Web Proxy – You can use PHPProxy to setup a Web proxy.
10. Use alternate content providers – When everything fails, you can use alternate service providers. For example if Gmail is blocked at your place, you can take another obscure mail address and enable email forward at Gmail.
Important!
Be careful when you are using public proxy servers. It is possible for the guy who is hosting the service to snoop on the data that is passing through. So I wouldn’t recommend putting any important information such credit card details when you are using public proxy server method.
update 1 (Nov 26) – Sharjeel has got an impressive list of 300+ web proxies.
update 2 (Dec 22) – Check out my latest how to on running your own windows Http proxy server.
update 3 (Feb 01) – Please see comments below for some good tips. Also some of the sites mentioned in the article are no longer working.
plz help me out to get access of this site. in our office it is blocked by websense firewall
I’m a American living in Shenzhen, China on China Telecom. I’ve been able to bypass the Firewall by using:
http://strongvpn.com
While the service is great (I can use Skype, ICQ, MSN, etc) I want to find a list of other providers as a backup. Does anyone know where I can find a list of pay VPN providers?
@abhinav, You can use one of the Anonymizer tools or web proxies.
i hope u can help me..ur site has given a lot of info to me.. but i still cudnt get what i wanted.. i want to use orkut..most of the links u have given me have been blocked by saudi government..needless to say..soon even ur this site may perhaps get blocked by thm as u give info..
plz help me soon.. so that i may be able to read and get the tools from u..
i want to access and read my mails in orkut..plz help
A Canadian School created a project called Psiphon which should have made #1 on this list. It easily allows you to create your own private SSL proxy with a simple install. Check it out! psiphon.civisec.org
Juste remote connect to your PC at home using whatever you want and browse from there.
I don’t know if work places work. But at my old High School many sites were blocked, including using FireFox. So we downloaded FireFox Portable and changed it’s name to explorer.exe. With that we could then go to any site we wanted.
I normally install a proxy w/pwd on my home computer that stay on. I can access whatever i want from anywhere with the right settings.
there’s a nice free software
http://www.logmein.com which lets you remote in to your home machine and then you can browse anything in the world. you need to install a IE plugin to do it though…
I would like to access some bbc.co.uk webpages, however the BBC has blocked non-UK IP addresses from accessing a lot of them. Is there a way to “get around” this?
As for a web proxy, our Guardster service (Guardster.com) has been active for several years helping people bypass firewalls around the world.
use torpark it is tor+firefox and can go on a flash drive and gets past most proxy/blockers
You cannot use logmein.com or real vnc as those ports are likely to be blocked as the school I’m currently at demonstrates when I tried logging in a computer located in a different state. Obviously there has to be some workarounds towards these services.
i dont think that the trick with the ip address (instead of hostname) will work. most servers have vhosts (see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/en/vhosts/) and it is not possible to connect to them just with the ip.
eg: webstuffscan.com [203.22.204.190] enter http://203.22.204.190 and you see a nice 404
If you have linux at home, use nomachine nx and connect to your home computer over SSH and browse there. Nobody can see what you have been browsing. The only trace is a SSH connection to your home computer. Can be done with ms remote desktop as well.
By far the best way, if your network will allow it, is to connected via some remote control system (gotomypc.com, pcanywhere, remote desktop, vnc, etc).
This has the benefit of leaving no trace of the actual sites visited on your office PC. All the proxies and anonomizers will leave a browser history detailing your actions for your office to view.
Connecting to your own PC will leave only the connection to your computer in the work-machine logs. Everything you do on it will be invisible to work (unless they use a keylogger
).
Websence has blocked everything from games to proxy servers to translation sites. i just can’t get on anything. Nothing works they even have the left mouse click disabled on the computers. try and get me past this.
Can the company find out if I went into the blocked web sites using the IP address method (method 1)?
If you’ve got a home pc to which you can port forward secure shell (ssh port 22) and if you have either Putty or a version of ssh (e.g. Cygwin) on your client machine, then it’s a simple ssh directive to tunnel a socks proxy to your home pc with:
$ssh -D 8000 username@home_pc
In your browser set socks4 to use localhost 127.0.0.1.
You will then be tunnel (port forwarding) all web session activity will resolve there.
You can also set up GAIM to use socks4 in the same manner if your office blocks AIM or Yahoo.
Secure shell folks–vpn for free.
I have Websense at my office and would like to be able to stream one of my old radio stations back home. However the site is blocked. I have been able to use things like guardster.com and cloakme.net to access other blocked pages like myspace etc. But, when I attempt to listen to the radio station it tells me I need to download Flash player which is already on my computer. I know b/c this station just recently started being blocked. If anyone has any advice on how to listen I would really appreciate it!
Please use more proxy servers.. I love getting all your personal information. In case you haven’t noticed the sarcasm… Please people, Use your heads if you are going to use anonymously or CGI proxy. The person hosting it is usually doing so for very deviant reasons. If you use a user name.password for anything while using them, expect to be hacked.
Important note
Do NOT try this at work.
If you deliberately use means to evade restrictions placed by the company, you might easely get fired.
Borders are there for a reason.
And DO NOT believe admins are dumb, please.
If an admin is up-to-date with his stuff, he/she will recognize anomyzers, the extended use of google-cache or proxies as well as usage patterns (it`s kinda unlikely, that eg. an acocuntant will spend an hour or so with babelfish…)
If i catch some user doing this on my networks, he/she gets ‘the pepper speech’ the first time (without involving their superiors), but the second time they get reported.
Needless to say that i only act on ‘real misuse’ – everyone tries some things, plays around with the borders and try to bend lines – that´s fine with me, because they then know where those borders are.
I`m fair and understandable, but for delibaretely underminding security i have very little tolerance.
an admin
Re – message from Radix
Please heed these words, as being caught at work sucks (games sites and games forums are banned at our workplace, muggins here managed to find a way to get to the forums and got caught, straight to HR, major telling off and FWW), even though it was not fair really.
take heed folks, even though you think you may have got away with it, look out for the network audit, you will be found out.
I can tell you.. I’m an admin that has a pretty strict policy. I have worked at a lot of places and if one tries to evade a filter they most likely will be fired. To secure an internal network ill watch what the users are doing and ban that. If someones gets too crazy ill just drop them off the internet and wait for them to complain.. ask to speak to their boss then send them the logs. It never works out for the user so I would say jsut do your damn work and quit trying to watch UTube!
See also Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents at Reporters Without Borders for useful advice on the dealing with blocks and other problems involving Net access and/or censorship:
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542
Here’s a list of 345+ proxies:
http://www.noblockingme.com/proxies.html
okay… so not only is myspace and all those good site blocked at my job BUT most proxies are.. so you have any site that go throught those blocks too?
thanks
I remote desktop to my home pc. Then i can do anything i want.
My school uses Lightspeed Systems Content blocker, which is similar to Websense. Since I’m not allowed to download any bypassing software, are there any good programs I could run from a flash drive? I usually don’t bother bypassing these filters, but Lightspeed recently blocked Digg.com, which was my last straw after they blocked Wikipedia a while ago.
Thanks for the help!
my school has a firewall on both the wired and wireless internet. on the wireless i can’t connect to a bittorrent client (azureus) and on the wired, it is sluggish. any good ideas?
Try Fresh Proxy List for a huge list of proxies that are always updated.
You can also try secured Web sites, which may not be blocked. For example, if http://yahoo.com is blocked then try https://www.yahoo.com.
I see a lot of people say use VPN or VNC. This is all well and good, but any site (office, school, etc) which has blocking of sites in place, more than likely block VPN and VNC, which of course kills this idea.
However, there is an option to make this work… Hamachi!
Sets up a secure VPN using outbound connections to a central server, hosted by hamchi. It uses SSL to create “Networks” which you can make a PC join.
Iv used this in the past and its great and secure!
El Dio: so it does…how observant
Lean03: that’s harsh. even our school misers, the “admin” who do nothing but make the dent in their chairs bigger all day, haven’t blocked Wikipedia. say you need it for educational purposes…?
our system takes restrictions to level x+1…bringing it’s own brand of idiocy. to cut down on internal spam mail being sent to groups, they had everyone switch to the Web based version of MS Outlook. they didnt remove the old one, half the school still uses it, and the mail groups aren’t even blocked by the web version anyway. no wonder everyone hates admins: ours have brains that report a 404 error.
)
though surely the admins like 403 (forbidden
To all those admins,
Fu@k those so called admins …
information can never be blocked you idiots …
for Orkut access …
Try this
It will take you to another persons scrapbook > click home and access this as your profile…
- Top level management.
Sh!t those admin: Wow, you’re amazingly cool. Did you have
to work long to come up with that nifty-ass name?
To the admins: Thanks a lot for the tips and thoughts. You
folks are who I have to call if anything goes wrong, and you’ve
reminded me that the respect has to go both ways.
can someone give me the ip address of a proxy i can copy paste right into my manual proxy configuration?
hiya all. i dont wont to bypass my work blocked list but is there a way to find out the list of sites blocked and how they did it, ie manually or by some automated method? just had a couple of sites blocked that its unlikely anyone else would access (card game forums) and wondering if im due for an ear bending
all help appreciated
Some schools are blocking youtube, hi5 and wikipedia, also! While adminstrators are blocking sites kids fight back using online proxy servers to access banned or filtered sites. Eg. http://www.vipsurfer.com and http://www.msproxy.net are just 2 such sites for bypassing firewalls while staying secure and protected.
After a while the sites will be blocked and you need to find other online PROXY SERVERS for myspace.com
Check out:
http://www.surfinter.net and http://www.surfinter.net/prox
http://www.hidemyway.com ***new proxy server, login and secure access hi5, bebo, you tube from school or work !
grrrr, youtube is been blocked in my school, the only least favorite website i can go to is dailymotion and Google video
i need help my school has seemed to block all proxies for myspace do u have any new ones you can give me to use? Please i need help
so, im trying to get onto myspace from my home computer, but my dad has set it up now so that when i try to go to myspace, the page only halfway loads and leaves out any pictures. i can put in my e-mail and password, but when i go to log in, it just says the page cannot be displayed. any ideas?
Proxy sites are being blocked at some schools. But some don’t block proxy IP adresses. You can access a proxy server like webwarper.net with it’s IP adress 69.41.173.145
If that doesn’t work, than keep looking for proxysites.
@cassie + fallenfromgrace
Connect directly to myspace’s IP adress, 216.178.32.51
If it is still blocked, try using webwarper.net/it’s Ip adress 69.41.173.145
It worked at my school…
i can access utube using mozilla.. but the prob is, it cant be loaded.. can u help me with this?
i read all of the above but still dont know how to get through the schools system. i am trying to access bebo.com and nothing seems to be working! what can i do?
You can get full access to any blocked sites from your offices,schools,colleges or ISP’s.Its totally free.Just visit daily.
http://proxymafia.org/
u can use http://www.9i7.cn in Chinese or English can quickily surf the sites ,which you want visit.
item no 42 doesn’t work in our college
So plz give me another way to access the orkut
proxymafia doesn’t work for orkut in college
same with 9i7
in our college if in url the string “orkut” comes then Access Denied msg comes
none of above work what should i do now
plz help me……….
i think our admin is very talented
Same here, everything is blocked at my school. I’ve tried every idea listed here, typed in every website, tried https, google cache, google translation, everything. The public proxy servers websites are all blocked. It seems the only option is remote connection to the house. Just have to figure out how that works. I guess I’ll give that a shot today once I get home.
Well, gave the remote connection thing a try. It seems it’ll require a degree in computer science to set up a proxy server at the house. Tried something more reasonable like logmein.com however, it seems I can’t download the software at the school’s computers…
anyone know how to get onto bebo, my college has blocked it.
Another great site I use is: bypass.thezerogroup.com
I just tried http://bypass.thezerogroup.com and it works great! Thanks for the tip Supa….
http://www.bebo.com
how do you get onto bebo
school is just gay i want to go to myspace but i cant
hi frnds. in our colg meebo is blocked so plz help me how can i acess meebo in colg.
Dear Sir,
I am very very sad that i couldnt open HI5 here in Dubai….i dotn knwo why teh hell they blocked this website,its nto related to porno or against theirs muslims laws.I am really wondered here.Hi5 is the site which i liek most and i m unable to stay in touch with my friends due to this.Could u please suggest me or give some links from which i can go to hi5?there was one http://www.asiaproxy.coo.ir but not that is also not working….i am really tensed.I hope u will help me out.
I will be greatful to you
till then,
shailesh
You can try use this site to access the blocked sites from school or work:
http://2hide.net
My school has just started a new ‘word’ blocking system. If, for example I wanted to go on to my space, then typing the url or searching in any search engine would cause internet explorer to immediently close.
Is there any way to get around this?
Everything at my school is blocked… even if you type in Proxy on google.. nothing will come up
and after looking for hours to find something, this was the only website that worked
stealthproxy.com
I hope it helps
Thanks a million 4 your article… !!!!!!
can you get us on gametoday.co.uk please
hey in my college orkut is blocked…!! i was using powerscrap.com as an alternative… but now it is also blocked…!! can any one suggest another options….
help need bebo any sites
i want to use myspace but is blocked so are all the proxy and and everything else
iv’e tried everything n nothing works my sister told me about this other website but soon after that got blocked too!what can i do?
they’ve bloked most sites in skool.
try either
google and type in defilter, or
http://www.accessbloked.myinfo
get bebo bak!
http://www.webyus.com or theres http://www.url0.in they are both ded cool!! but the best one is url0.in so try them both plz they are bound to work pleze just try them bbe xXx love you all
oh and the chelsea girl that wrote bebo.com tht one wil definitley not work cuz it was blocked on every school websites months ago thts y were all looking 4 proxzee sites!!
zippyfile.com and click2surf.is and buckbox.com and aggy.info
please can u tell me any websites to get onto bebo at school?? please every1 is desperate 2 get onto myspace an bebo fanks x-x-x-x-x-x
i can’t use bittorrent client (azureus) or a file sharing software (limewire) at work. how i can bypass my ofice’s proxy? i can still open some websites though. please help me
hi musthag,
u can access orkut by using http://www.mathtunnel.com or http://www.proxinbox.com u try with this plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
hi
i have tried all ur methods but still cant find a way to access orkut at my college.. plz help me find suitable proxy sites or sum similar stuff so dat i cn view blocked sites.. thnx..
luking fwd 2 a response 4m ur side..
kanav
I have not found away to get around blocked webpages at work, I did find a way to download youtube videos directly from google (which is not blocked by my school)
just check out: http://downloadandsaveyoutubevideos.info/
bypass.thezerogroup.com is working again, I was just able to login to myspace!
Thanks for the great article!
Peacefire.org will email you proxy servers + tells you how to set up your own proxy.
Latest Proxy- http:\\www.GooeyCake.com
We used the IP method at our school so they banned USB drives without persmission, a conduct refferal if you get caught (which you dont unless your stupid) and also “restrict” computers to educational use only. Try to keep your method private. I told the way to one people who told it to two more, etc. Like 20 kids went to the library to use computers every day just to play games, so the librarian got suspicious of what we were doing. Then a bunch of people got caught with a warning.
Also, it would be cool if there was a Proxy for U3 drives. Just plug the drive in and use the proxy. Can someone tell me if there is one?
After reading most of these replies written by semi-retarded emo brats, I want to do nothing more than block every non-education related website at my school district. If you ever wonder why so much money is spent to make sure you can’t watch videos or play games from work/school, then take a look in the mirror.
As for the people who are being blocked from their homes by entire countries, that definantly sucks, and good luck finding something to get around it. But if you do, don’t post it on the internet, because alot more people than me are paid to hunt down these proxies and block them.
I need a way past the St. Bernard blocker. Almost every site at our school is blocked.
here is yet another site that will allow access to blocked or restricted websites
http://www.peterlem0njell0.com/
KPROXY WORKS!! (http://62.193.235.46) Thanks!!
hi there in response to all the posts about proxies and IP addresses has anyone concidered making ur own proxy in command prompt and notepad????
NO????
Well here goes:
1. open a new document in notepad
2.type this EXACTLY AS IT IS:
title Proxy
cls
nslookup
3. now click file.
4. now click save as
5. now save it as proxy.bat (U MUST HAVE .bat AT THE END OR IT WILL NOT WORK!!!
6. go to wherever u saved the file and it should be an icon with gears on it.
7. open that up
8. type the URL of the website u wana access
9. it will give u the IP of the website
10. type that into ur browser and delete the proxy u just made!!!!
cantbustme.com
will work for awhile till they block that!
but you can gp to myspace and all that
go to google.com and search ur site, if blocked:
cache:http://mail.yahoo.com
cache:http://orkut.com
Relakks.com is a great new service by the Pirate bay. It’s approximately $50 for a year.
If anyone can find a way around the Dailymotion ‘Explicit Content’ block of US IP addresses, you will be famous on the internet if you pass that information on. This block basically prevents users in the states from accessing about half or more of the videos on DailyMotion, many of which are not actually explicit by any standard. European users do not have this problem.
Just a quick question — does anybody know any good tips for surfing the web in mainland China? My wife (who is from Taiwan) and I are going there next summer, and I’m worried that she won’t be able to access her blog (www.pixnet.net, hosted in Taiwan) from there. Any tips? I know there has been some research done recently on China’s “Great Firewall,” but I don’t have the technical expertise to make any sense of it.
Thanks so much, by the way, for these tips!
erm… thre is no chance of downloading from proxy sites rite? coz i tried it and i can’t download.
ok, this is my problem, i want to download some files from megaupload and obviously my school blocked it. so now i can’t download from it.
any way to solve my problem?
thank you in advance!
How to do port forwarding for wireless networks? Thanks.
i was using ULTRAVPN, since yesterday its not getting connected. can u help me… i copied the message tht appears in the window;
Wed Jul 30 20:42:14 2008 SIGUSR1[soft,tls-error] received, process restarting
Wed Jul 30 20:42:14 2008 Restart pause, 2 second(s)
Wed Jul 30 20:42:16 2008 IMPORTANT: OpenVPN’s default port number is now 1194, based on an official port number assignment by IANA. OpenVPN 2.0-beta16 and earlier used 5000 as the default port.
Wed Jul 30 20:42:16 2008 WARNING: No server certificate verification method has been enabled. See http://openvpn.net/howto.html#mitm for more info.
Wed Jul 30 20:42:16 2008 Re-using SSL/TLS context
Wed Jul 30 20:42:16 2008 LZO compression initialized
All the info posted here is very good.
I have one small solution for home use.
Just like the user who wants to access BBC sites for viewing videos, and the BBC blocks them; I have a similar situation with http://www.nbc.com, to watch their videos.
It tells me that because I don’t live in the continental US, I cannot watch their videos.
I bypass this by using the AOL 9.0 Desktop, and connect using Broadband connection, not dial-up.
I just log into AOL, and it allows me to view videos from NBC.
I suggest maybe you should do the same with trying to see videos from BBC; try AOL UK….maybe it works, maybe not!
But, that’s all I can think of…like I said, as a simple solution.
Hi all,
I’m an American living in Belgium and I need help.
ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX all offer shows on the internet, but
when I try to watch them a message tells me I must
be in the USA to access them. My obvious question
is HOW CAN I WORK AROUND THIS? Thank you any and all
for your help and guidance.
Kiefer
I am at a placement called wedgewood. I am trying to bypass the contentprotect filter, but i cant figure out how to. even if i try to type in ip adresses, it says that i cant do that. do u have any tips for me?
Kiefer,
To work around this, and see content available only to Americans, you need a proxy server located in the USA, so that ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, etc will think you’re there too. However, media streaming is a bit heavy for normal free proxies to handle satisfactorily, so you may need a private proxy. The best, and most secure way is to sign up for a web host account located in the USA, and create a SSH tunnel to it
everything is ok but what to do if the web proxies are also blocked? it is dam secured here …….. even ultra surf is not working…… is there any other software???
please, i need some help to get to access http://www.facebook.com on my office domain. besides i will need a good one that will get me access to every activity on facebook
Hi…I’ve been using the MyGoThru proxy for Myspace all the time. I have one problem though…I can’t upload photos. This is really bothering me…any help?
Sir,
Now my Action VOIP site is blocked , how can I oppen and use this site PLS help me
Regards
Ajith
My office is so brilliant that any one of the tricks given here is not working. You know, they have blocked the word orkut or facebook from the entire network. If you search for these words in Google, the message ‘The requested URL could not be retrieved’ comes. They suck.
Using the IP Address works in many cases, but only to a degree. For example, my company blocked Youtube, so instead I used 64.15.120.233 and got in. BUT, you then get blocked when you try to sign in or even just watch a vid, getting an error message. The URL for the sign in page goes through Google first, then redirects to Youtube. I tried replacing the youtube.com in that URL with the IP but no luck signing in.
My office IT staff are very talented they have blocked all the acces to social sites, I have tried all the tricks of the trade but couldn’t break it. Can any one help me out on this?