Bypass Web Restrictions
It's your lunch break and you just finished a really hard morning. All you want to do is kick back for a few minutes and play your favorite Flash game, or vent on Facebook. Unfortunately, your network administrator frowns on fun times, and the sites you need are blocked. Luckily for you, there are ways around many of the restrictions put in place to keep you from having a good time. See Step 1 below to learn how.
Contents
Steps
Using a Portable Browser
- Download a portable browser. A portable browser does not need to be installed to run, meaning that it won't leave any traces on the computer you use it on. By downloading a portable browser to a flash drive and configuring its proxy settings, you can have a browser that you can take with you anywhere to bypass any web restrictions. Firefox is the easiest portable browser to use. Make sure that you download the portable version.
- If you're setting this up to use at school or work, download and configure the browser on your home computer first.
- Firefox Portable can be downloaded from portableApps.com
- Install the browser to a USB drive. When you download Firefox Portable from PortableApps, you will be given a setup file. Run this setup file, and set the installation directory to your flash drive. The browser will be installed directly onto your flash drive.
- Configure the proxy settings. A "proxy" is a server that you route all of your internet traffic through, allowing you to bypass restrictions. Proxy servers are located all over the globe, making them useful for people all over. In order to get your portable Firefox to connect to blocked sites, you will need to configure it with proxy settings first. Since you typically can't change proxy settings on work or school computers, this is where the portable app shines.
- You will need a working proxy server to enter into Firefox Portable. You can find lists of servers online. Popular proxy lists include HideMyAss, SamAir, inCloak, and FreeProxyLists.
- Make note of both the proxy address as well as the port. Try to find a proxy with a high connection speed and relatively close server, or web browsing will be very slow.
- Open Firefox Portable, click the Menu button in the upper-right corner and select Options. Click the Advanced menu, and then click the Network tab. Click the Settings... button to open your proxy settings. Select "Manual proxy configuration", and then enter in the proxy information that you found. Check the "Use this proxy server for all protocols" box, and ensure that the right Port has been entered.
- Use the browser. Once your proxy information is saved, you can start using your new portable browser. Plug the USB drive into the computer at your school or work and open the Firefox Portable program. Firefox will connect to the internet through your proxy, bypassing the blocking software.
- Browsing through a proxy will usually be slower than normal browsing. Not all content may be displayed correctly.
- You don't need to worry about clearing the history or deleting your tracks, as everything is stored in your portable browser.
- Free proxy servers on proxy lists change often, and you may find that your proxy settings no longer work. You will need to change them from time to time.
Using Web-Based Proxies
- Find a web-proxy. A web-proxy is useful if you aren't on your own computer because all the work is being done through the browser, so the method works regardless of your computer's operating system. All of your browsing traffic is directed through the proxy website's server, tricking the blocking software into thinking you're connecting to a legitimate website.
- There are several websites that list proxies that you can use. Proxy.org is a great place to start and is constantly updating the list as proxies come and go.
- There's a good chance that proxy listing sites will be blocked by a school or work network. Visit the site at home and make a list of 10-15 proxy sites to try at the blocked computer.
- Proxies that are overused get noticed and blocked, so vary which ones you use regularly.
- Using a proxy will make browsing significantly slower. This is because the traffic is rerouted through the proxy, reinterpreted and then sent to your location. Be aware that videos and websites may take longer to load.
- Choose a proxy site. If the site is blocked, try a different one. When picking sites from a list of proxies, try using sites that are geographically closer to your location. This will help to ensure the fastest browsing experience possible.
- Select the URL box. Enter the address of the website you wish to visit. Since proxy sites reinterpret the data of website you are trying to access, there's a chance that the site won't load correctly. Most commonly the video will not load. If this is the case, try again with a different proxy site.
Connecting via IP Address
- Find the IP address of the website that's blocked. Some filter programs only block websites by their hostname, and not the IP address. By entering the IP address instead of the website name, you can bypass these blocks. This will not work for all web filtering programs.
- Open the Command Prompt in Windows by pressing ⊞ Win+R and typing cmd. Open the Terminal in Mac in the Utilities subfolder of the Applications folder.
- Type ping Template:Var. For example, if you wanted to find wikiHow's IP address, you would type ping www.wikihow.com.
- Note the IP address that is returned when the ping is complete.
- Enter the address into the browser. Enter the address into your browser's address bar and load the site. If the filter software doesn't block IP addresses, the site will be displayed.
Creating Your Own Home Proxy
- Set up a web server. You can configure your home computer to act as a proxy for your internet browsing at school or work. Once your home proxy is configured, you simply use any web browser to point to the proxy's address, which will then act much like the proxy websites in the previous sections. You will be tricking the blocking software into thinking you are connecting to a legitimate website.
- The first step to setting up your own proxy server is to install a web server on your home computer. This will transform your home computer into a server that you can access from anywhere in the world. One of the most popular free programs for doing this is WAMPServer, which contains everything you need in one installer. Once you install WAMPServer, you will see its icon in your System Tray.
- Mac users can install MAMP, which performs essentially the same functions.
- Turn on the server by right-clicking on the WAMPServer icon and selecting "Put Online". Test it by right-clicking on the icon again and selecting "Localhost"; if you see the WAMPServer configuration page, then everything worked.
- Install PHProxy. This is a free, open-source program that installs a web-based proxy into your server. Make sure to download PHProxy from SourceForge to ensure that you are downloading a legitimate version. This software will turn your web server into a proxy much like a proxy from the lists in the previous sections.
- PHProxy comes in a single ZIP file. Extract the folder inside the archive and place it into your WAMP (or MAMP) web server root directory. In Windows this is C:\wamp\www\, and in OS X this is Applications/MAMP/htdocs/. Copy the PHproxy folder into this location to install it.
- You don't need to run any installation programs, PHProxy is "installed" simply by being copied into the right folder.
- Test it out. Once PHPproxy is installed, you can quickly test it out by opening your browser and typing in the following address: http://localhost/phproxy/. If the PHProxy page appears, then everything went OK.
- Test the proxy by visiting an address through the "Web Address" field. You should see the site load with your proxy information before the regular site address in the browser's address bar.
- Set up your port forwarding. Ports act like doors to your network, and are typically left closed for security reasons. In order to get your proxy to work, you will need to open some of these doors. This is accomplished by configuring your router to forward all incoming website requests through your new web server. To do so, you will need to know your computer's Find-the-IP-Address-of-Your-PC address, which is its "location" on your home network. Open your Access-a-Router, navigate to the Set-Up-Port-Forwarding-on-a-Router section, and then create an entry for TCP/UDP traffic on Port 80 to your computer's internal IP address.
- Find your home network IP address. With port forwarding set up, all you need to know to access your web server from anywhere in the world is your home network's external, or public, IP address. You can quickly discover this by going to Google on your home computer and typing ip address into the search. Your public IP will be listed at the top of the page.
- Test your proxy by opening the browser on your computer, entering in your public IP address, and ending the address with /phproxy/. For example, if your public IP address is 24.24.24.24, the address for your proxy would be 24.24.24.24/phproxy/.
- Use the proxy. Your proxy is now configured and you can use it wherever you'd like. Simply enter the address you found in the previous step into any browser to bypass any restrictions.
- Most home networks have IPs that change on a regular basis. If you find that you can no longer connect to your server, your IP has most likely been changed and you will need to find it again.
- If you get caught at school or work connecting to a proxy, you can get into serious trouble.
- A proxy does not encrypt any data coming into your network, so a network administrator could still see what you are looking at if they are monitoring you. All the proxy does is bypass any restrictions put in place on the network.
Warnings
- Network administrators for major companies may take disciplinary action against you if you are caught bypassing network restrictions at your place of work.
- Bypassing network restrictions at school may be grounds for suspension or even expulsion.
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