How to access blocked websites

There are several thousand articles available on the internet explaining the means to access blocked websites which according to me lack somewhere in the explanation. In this article i will try to explain some of the possible ways of accessing a blocked websites that i know. If you can't use any of the method explained here i am not sure that you will find another way to access the website.

Way 1:- Use Tor. Tor is the most famous and the most secure anonymity network that exists today in the world. All the data from your machine to server is transmitted over several internal nodes of the network in an encrypted form before it is actually transmitted to the server. Although the use of tor is not recommended for websites like youtube which require high bandwidths it is the best and the safest way to access a blocked website. If you are behind a proxy server you need to set the tor configuration to use the proxy. See the tor documentation for it. (it takes some time before you can start using it after executing it)

Way 2:- Use a proxy server. A proxy server takes a clients request and retransmits it to the server. You can find a list of proxy server by searching google. Then you can set the proxy server in your proxy configuration and start using it. Note that if you are already behind a proxy server this approach will not work for you. Also this might not work in case the blocking is based on keyword filters as the data between the client and the proxy server is not encrypted in any form.

Way 3:- Use a web proxy (anonymous browsing service). A web proxy is similar to a proxy server with the difference being that you don't need to explicitly set the browser proxy configuration to use the proxy. You can just type in the address of the proxy server and you can start using the proxy. Due to this reason these kind of proxies work even if you are behind a firewall. There are thousands of web proxies available at open directory which you can use. Although great at accessing blocked sites they may not work in cases where blocking is based on keyword filters. Also, several of these sites may already be blocked and you might have a hard time finding one working proxy in that case you can search google using the keyword inurl:nph-proxy.cgi to find a proxy which might not me blocked. The use of these proxies to surf websites where private information is transmitted is not recommended.

Way 4:- Use the websites ip. You can perform a dns lookup of the site you want to access to get the site's ip and then by putting the ip instead of the sites direct address you might be able to access the site.

Way 5:- Use your web server which can access the blocked site. If you own a server that can access the blocked site you can host a cgi or a php proxy script on the server and use your web server to access the site. This approach is similar to the web proxy one but in this case you own the web server and hence you can rely more on it. In case of blocking based on keyword filters you can add some sort of addon to defy such keyword filters (for desperate,advanced users).
You can also create an ssh tunnel from your computer to the web server which is very very reliable but is recommended only for advanced users.

Way 6:- Use google cache. If you are know what you are looking for you can use google's cache to view the site. Search for the subject you are looking and add site:yoursitenamehere and then in the results click cached to view the content from the google cache.

Way 7:- Use anonymity network. Some anonymity networks such as Java Anon Proxy, I2P and Freenet are also available which can be used to access blocked sites and surf websites anonymously. Tor also belongs to this category but it has several features(like using tor behind a proxy) which prompted me to give a unique section to it.

Way 8:- Use a mobile proxy. There are several proxy sites like phonifier, mowser and google mobile which adapts webpages so that they appear correctly on your mobile. These sites can, in some cases, be used to access blocked sites although the result may not be pleasant to the eyes.

Way9:- Use a translation service . You can use a translation service like babelfish and google translate to access blocked sites by setting the translation option to translate from english to english.

Surf websites through web-proxies (Part 2)

I have already told you the basic of web-proxies. You can read it here. These proxies are only helpful in hiding the actual website.

Compared to the security threats they pose. I think not accessing that website is far better than accessing it.

Hey, what security threats? I have been using these websites for years and nothing has happened. So, you wan’t to know the security threats these sites pose. Ok, will name two of the most dangerous ones.

1. The purpose of a secure connection is to help people keep there sensitive information(passwords/logins…) hidden. But as i have already told you the information to and from these websites is completely unencrypted standard html format so any time you login using these proxies a person somewhere in the world can intercept your data and steal that information.
2. The owners of these websites are not that innocent as many people might think. They might be keeping logs and any personal information that you are sending to them might get logged in these logs which is again hazardous as the website owner can look into his logs anytime and get each and every information about you. This is i think the most serious issue.

So, do i suggest you to stop using these proxies? Yes, infact i do. But, to all those to whom accessing the website is more important than keeping personal information personal i suggest that atleast change your password from somewhere you can directly access the website, after you have accessed the website using a web-proxy.

Any comments and suggestions will be most helpful.

Note: I will be writing another article to tell you the easiest and the most sure shot way of accessing these websites from workplace in a secure manner. Hopefully that will be done by tommorow :)