Internet censorship has grown drastically over the past few years with
countries like China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran taking the lead
over others in blocking sources of free unbiased information. China is
known to have even forced Google to filter its search results.
Government censorship is not the only reason why websites are blocked.
Some network administrators also prevent users from accessing certain
websites which they believe are of no use in places such as schools
and sometimes, even offices. In such times, you may need to access a
website that is blocked. This article explains how.
Access Blocked Websites at School, Work or Anywhere
There are many genuine reasons for which you might want to visit
blocked websites at your school or office. Given below are the ways
you can use to regain access to the blocked website you wish to visit.
1. Cache method: Most search engines maintain a cache of web pages
indexed by them. You can search for a website on Google , Yahoo! or
Bing and click on the cached link that is given next to the result. To
load the web pages more quickly, you can visit the text-only version.
Since the website is provided from the search engine's servers, it can
be used to overcome IP address and URL based filtering.
2. Using Google Mobile Search: For users browsing on a slow mobile
internet connection, Google Mobile search removes all CSS styling and
JavaScript to present a stripped down version of the web page from
Google's own server. As the content is provided from Google's servers,
the blocking software feels that you are visiting Google, whereas in
reality, you are viewing the blocked website. Go to Google Mobile
Search. To visit the website of your choice, just replace
tweakandtrick.com in the URL with the address of the website. Despite
the name, Google Mobile Search can be accessed from your PC as well.
3. Access blocked websites with Google Translate. You can use
translation service from Google to visit blocked websites. To do so,
enter a language different from the website's language in the 'From'
field and English in the "To" field. You can also use this method to
bypass software that block websites on the basis of specific keyword
mentions. Just translate the URL you wish to visit in a different
language to overcome the keyword block.
4. Create a 2 layered unblocker: Go to Google Translate, open any
proxy website inside it and then use that proxy website to access your
blocked website. In this way, you can achieve two layered website
unblocking.
5. Use RSS Readers for accessing restricted blogs: All blogs syndicate
their content via RSS feeds which you can subscribe to in web based
RSS readers like Feedly to access blocked content. For example, the
RSS feed of this blog is located at
http://feeds.tweakandtrick.com/tweakandtrick.
6. To access a blocked website, you can enter its IP address instead
of the URL in your browser's address bar. This can bypass most basic
forms of website blocks. Although if the blocking software maps the IP
address to the website domain, the website will still remain blocked.
You can find the IP address of any website by pinging the website
domain name in the Command Prompt in Windows (Terminal in other
operating systems) and noting its IP address. Execute ping
www.tweakandtrick.com in the Command Prompt to ping
www.tweakandtrick.com.
7. Use IP Address to Decimal conversion: If you cannot access your
blocked website by entering its IP address, you can enter the decimal
equivalent of the URL's IP address to get access to it. Search Google
for IP to Decimal + IP Address of the banned website and Google will
convert it into decimal. Enter that into your browser's address bar
and see if the blocked website opens.
8. Nyud.net: To unblock blocked websites, just add nyud.net to their
URL. For example, if this blog (www.tweakandtrick.com) is blocked, you
can visit it by going to www.tweakandtrick.com.nyud.net.
9. Opera Mini Simulator: Opera Mini, the mobile browser for users with
a slow internet connection, can be installed on your computer. You can
use this PC version to visit blocked websites as Opera Mini accesses
content from Opera's servers instead of accessing it from the servers
on which the website is hosted. Most websites will load through this
method, although the quality of the results obtained may not be that
good for JavaScript heavy websites.
10. TOR: TOR or The Onion Router is a free software that protects the
privacy and security of its users by channeling data through multiple
nodes so as to prevent the original data from being unscrambled.
Although browsing through TOR is a bit slow, it is one of the most
effective ways of bypassing restricted websites and protecting your
privacy.
11. Proxy websites: There are many proxy websites (anonymizers) which
open blocked websites on their servers and present the data to you.
This hides the address of the website you are trying to visit from
your internet service provider. Few popular free ones include
Anonymouse and KProxy.
12. VPN software: VPN or Virtual Private Network software can be
described as a tunnel under the public network that offers more
anonymity than proxy websites as it also encrypts the data transferred
by the blocked website thus, offering complete anonymity. Although
most VPN software are available as paid software only, HotSpotShield
is a popular free alternative.
13. IP hiding software: Sometimes, websites block users on a
particular IP address from visiting themselves. In such cases, free IP
hiding software like UltraSurf can be used to visit them. While free
software offer very less features as compared to paid ones, they are
still effective for overcoming most common blocks.
14. Changing DNS servers: A common way of blocking websites is
preventing DNS servers from giving the locations of the blocked
website's servers. In such a scenario, changing your DNS servers to
those of OpenDNS or Google DNS will be your best option to get over
the block. As an additional advantage, this can also increase your
internet speed.
15. Edit your host files: Some malware and blocking software edit your
host files and add a website's address in them to prevent you from
visiting it. In such a scenario, you can edit your host file with
Notepad by visiting "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc" if C is your
system drive. In Windows 10, Windows 8(.1), Windows 7, a warning from
UAC might be displayed.
