Blocked Websites: How to Break Through the Blocks!

Are you experiencing blocked websites due to your high school, library, or office using blocking apps? It can be a major bummer when you have blocked website as it can prevent you from talking to someone you need to speak to on Facebook, Twitter, or even email

Getting around blocked websites is possible. Here are 8 ways to do it, some are easier than other so take a moment to consider which is going to be best for you. As a word of caution, don’t come to me if you get caught – take responsibility for your choices, my friends.

 

Getting around blocked websites on your school or office network

1: Using a link shortener

This will work if you can get the link you’re trying to get to and running it through a link shortener like bit.ly, Hootsuite or Bufferapp. It can work because the block will be on the URL – but you aren’t using the actual URL in your browser. This is a pretty hit or miss tactic for getting around blocked websites.

2: Using a cached search page

Google and Yahoo don’t actually search the entire Internet when you do a search, they do a search of their cached webpages. You can access these pages in searches easily enough by clicking on them in the search results, taking you to Google or Yaho!o’s servers rather than the blocked website:

With Google, click on the arrow to the right of the URL. Yahoo! have the word ‘cached’ right next to the URL.

The URL may still well be blocked, but it’s worth a shot. This is also completely useless for social media websites as you can’t see what’s going on with your page now.

3: Anonymous surfing with VPNs

You can use a VPN to encrypt and hide all of your online activity. This gives you the ability to get past your blocked websites at school or work. They are, without a doubt, the easiest and surest way to get past all types of blocked website problems. We review some of the best VPNs on our homepage, but all VPNs should be able to help you with this.

The trick is going to be getting your VPN onto a device that isn’t yours. You can store it on a USB key and plug it in as a work around. For others, try taking a BYOD approach and connect to your school or office network through a device you own and turn your VPN on. No more blocked websites then!

4: The Wayback Machine and Internet Archives

The Wayback Machine is an Internet tool created by the Internet Archive group that is primarily used by old guys like me who want some nostalgia, and for how it stores past version of webpages – it can be great for research. You can search for your URL and look for the latest copy.

Check out how it brings up old web pages with Google still in Beta:

Fun times. It is, essentially, a cached page like above, except they keep EVERYTHING while search engines continually updated.

5: Proxy servers

Proxy servers are similar to a VPN, but without the powerful encryption technology that completely hides your blocked website’s URL. What they do is connect you to another server outside of your school or work network and route your traffic through there.

They can indeed help you get around blocked websites, but many of them are free and poorly maintained. Try looking at a list of the best proxy servers for more.

6: Using Translation services

You can get around many issues with blocked websites by using translation services like Google Translate and Bing! Translator. Just tell them the website you need translated and it will bring it to you and display it in their results.

The problem with Google, that I don’t have with Bing!, is that you can’t translate English to English. You have to translate it from English to another language, then translate it back. By that time it’s a big jumble of a mess! Speaking two languages is, as you can guess, a huge asset.

Bing! will let you translate English to English hand display the results in your browser:

Be prepared for it to mess up the formatting a bit, otherwise the content is just as it would be if the website wasn’t blocked.

7: RSS Feeds

If you know ahead of time what websites you want to visit you can, in some cases, subscribe to their RSS feed. You can then read their content with your RSS reader app, or it can be sent right to your email.

This won’t get your around blocked websites that you find via a web search, but it can help you when you have a blocked website you like to visit all the time that has a subscription option.
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Feature image credit to Rawpixel / Shutterstock