Top 5 Ways to Access Blocked Websites – Part II

This post is a continuation of our recent article “Top 5 Ways to Access Blocked Websites“ in which we covered the most popular 5 ways using which you can unblock restricted websites at school, work or office. In this part II, we will discuss 5 more rather unconventional methods of unblocking websites, most of which are not so common and thus generally not known to most people. So here they go:

Method 1: Using Google Mobile Search

You can use Google Mobile Search to indirectly gain access to your desired website. Google Mobile Search removes the CSS & javascript elements from the web pages and breaks a large page into several small pages. Though the output will appear as if you are viewing the website on a mobile phone, this method certainly works quite well.

Method 2: Get Web Pages Via Email

Web2Mail is a great free service that sends websites you want to read directly into your inbox. Simply send an email to www@web2mail.com with the URL of the blocked website as the subject title and you will start receiving web pages from the website into your inbox.

Method 3: Using Encrypted VPN Service

The Your Freedom OpenVPM service is a sophisticated application that hides your network address from the end server. You just need to download the client application , install it and subsequently run it on your computer. Your PC will start acting as an anonymous web proxy and you can safely gain access to all blocked websites.
Similarly you can also download and use Tor , which is an advanced proxy server that uses multiple anonymous servers for a single Web request and allows you to access blocked websites while remaining anonymous.

Method 4: Using JAP

JAP or JonDo is a popular client that acts as a local proxy between the browser and the internet, allowing you to browse the blocked websites while remaining anonymous the whole time. As JAP uses a single static address which is shared by many JAP users, the end server won’t get to know your real IP address. All you need to do is to download the JAP client and install it. Then you need to change your LAN settings in whatever browser you are using (through Tools->Internet Options) and check “Use a Proxy server for your LAN” option (or “Manual Proxy configuration” in Firefox). Enter “127.0.0.1″ in the server column and “4001″ in the port column. Then run the JAP client and check the “On” option under Anonymity tab. Now simply open your browser and browse the blocked websites freely.

Method 5: Using Wayback Machine

Wayback Machine is an internet service that keeps a copy of almost all websites on the internet right from the date they were started. Cached pages of each website are available, using which you can indirectly gain access to the blocked websites. However the only downside is that there is a 6 month time lag before the pages appear in the Wayback Machine.
Let’s see an example. My ISP has blocked IsoHunt, which is a major bit-torrent website. However by entering the URL of IsoHunt on Wayback Machine, I was able to access it without any problems. I then searched “America” on IsoHunt. Here’s the screenshot (Click on the image to enlarge it).

How to open facebook at school or office

These days most academic institutions and corporate offices block popular social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook and Orkut so that students/employees don’t waste their time chatting with their buddies or checking their status updates and focus on being more productive instead. However if you are addicted to Facebook but are unable to access it due to Facebook being blocked at school, college or office, here are some methods that will let you open Facebook and access it without any hassles:

1. Change the DNS Server

Most sites including Facebook are usually blocked at schools, colleges and offices by blocking it in the DNS server itself. But you can easily bypass it by switching to some other DNS such as OpenDNS or Google Public DNS. Only a while back some websites including Youtube & torrent sites were not opening up in my PC. No matter how many settings I tweaked, I was unable to access these websites. I had heard of OpenDNS, so I decided to change my DNS settings to those of OpenDNS. Right after I did that, I was able to access all of those websites without any problems. Fortunately, you can do the same since changing your Internet’s DNS setting is quite easy. If you are using Windows, go to Control Panel > Network Connections and select the connection that you are currently using. Right click on it and click on Properties. Then choose Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
Click on the Properties tab and check the “Use the following DNS server addresses” option. Now enter the following values in Preferred DNS Server and Alternate DNS Server respectively (OpenDNS):

• 208.67.222.222
• 208.67.220.220

2. Using Gmail

Since Gmail can never be blocked by any institution or office, you can use it safely for accessing Facebook indirectly. All you have to do is to add a gadget by going to Gmail Settings > Labs and looking up the ‘Add any gadget by URL‘ option. Click on “Save changes” button.

Return to the Settings page and you will see that a tab called ‘Gadgets‘ has been added. Click on it and enter the following URL in the ‘Add a gadget by its URL’ field and click add. Here’s the URL:
http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml

After adding this gadget, a Facebook gadget will appear at the bottom-left of your screen, just below the Chat. Click on expand and login to your FB account. When you first login to your account, a ‘request for confirmation’ screen will appear. Simply click on the Allow button. Once logged in, you can easily update your status and read all recent status updates by your friends.

3. Using Opera Mini

Another method to open blocked Facebook is by using the web version of opera mini browser. Just download Opera mini simulator that functions exactly as the Opera mini browser would do on any mobile phone. In order to access Facebook, you will have to use the mobile version of Facebook – http://m.facebook.com.

4. Edit the Hosts File

Here’s a simple trick you can use to unblock Facebook on the computer you using.
Now save the file.

5. ScrapBoy

Scrapboy is a desktop application that allows you to manage Facebook, Myspace and Orkut from your desktop. Just enter your Facebook login details and access Facebook directly from your desktop. You can change notification options from the Notifications tab in the Preferences window of Scrapboy.


ENJOY!!!!!!!