How to Bypass Blocked Sites and Internet Restrictions
It doesn’t matter where in the world you live; there are times when you’re going to come across blocked sites and a restricted internet.
If you come across an internet block, don’t panic. Keep reading to find out more how to bypass barred sites and internet restrictions.
Why Do Blocked Sites Exist?
The possible reasons for the blocks are numerous.
Firstly, lots of services use geo-blocking tools to restrict access to their content in certain countries. The issue is perhaps most commonly associated with Netflix’s catalog. However, it can also apply to videos on social media (such as sports clips), news articles, and even entire services which are not available outside of their country of origin (like Hulu).
Secondly, governments often block access to sites to suit their agenda. The Twitter block in China is perhaps the most famous example, but we’ve also seen Turkey block access to social media in an attempt to quell protests in 2016 and Sri Lanka stop access to Facebook in the aftermath of the April 2019 terrorist attacks, supposedly to prevent the spread of fake news.
Thirdly, employers often block sites on their internal networks. Heaven forbid that you waste a few minutes of their time checking Facebook…
Lastly, some countries have odd laws that can restrict access to certain types of material. The UK’s controversial porn ban, which required users to verify their age, and Germany’s crusade against YouTube are two of the most notable cases.
How to Bypass Blocked Sites
If you run into a restricted site, what can you do? Here are the best ways to bypass blocked sites.
1. Use a VPN
The most popular way of accessing blocked internet sites is to use a high-quality paid Virtual Private Network (VPN).
VPNs have many benefits, but from a blocked sites standpoint, it’s the technology’s ability to provide you with an IP address in another country that’s the most important. The foreign IP address makes it appear as though you are based in a different location. Thus, you won’t trigger a site’s geo-blocks and can circumnavigate restrictions.
Some services theoretically block access from VPN IP addresses. In practice, this has resulted in a massive game of cat and mouse, in which the VPN providers are generally victorious.
VPNs are incredibly easy to use: download the app onto your phone or computer, enter your login credentials, and choose the network that you want to connect to.
Need a VPN? You can score discounted plans with CyberGhost and ExpressVPN if you sign up using these links. Both are reputable, performant, and mindful of your privacy.
2. Use a Smart DNS
The recent clampdown on VPNs by services like Netflix and BBC iPlayer has resulted in a growth of smart DNS providers.
Smart DNS services have some pros and cons when considered in contrast to VPNs.
One of the most significant advantages of using a smart DNS to get around a website block is internet speed. Unlike VPNs, which route all your web traffic through a different network, smart DNS providers only need to reroute information about your location. This process results in a faster browsing experience.
On the downside, DNS services do not offer any of the same privacy benefits as VPNs. They do not encrypt your traffic, nor do they change your IP. If authorities in your location are likely to prosecute based on the sites you visit, a smart DNS provider is not right for you.
One of the best smart DNS providers is Getflix.
3. Use a Free Proxy
If you need to quickly access a blocked website on a one-time basis, a free proxy might be the way to go.
A proxy will hide your IP address, thus helping to disguise your location. It will not, however, encrypt your traffic. The lack of encryption means proxies are not as secure as VPNs; they are an excellent option to get around blocks on work and school networks but are not suitable for browsing which requires anonymity.
Proxies are typically much slower than VPNs. You’ll also find they often have issues with page formatting and images. Both of these problems preclude them from being a reliable long-term solution.
Check out our guide to some of the best proxies for geo-blocked content if you’d like to learn more.
4. Use a Site’s IP Address
When you think of web addresses, you probably think of the domain name (e. g. ) that you type into your browser’s address bar.
In practice, the domain name is like a veneer for the IP address. It’s the IP address that points at a server and directs your traffic. DNS servers are responsible for converting domain names into their associated IP addresses.
However, if you know a site’s IP address, you can enter it directly into your browser, and you will still end up viewing the site.
Because many networks only block domain name URLs and not their underlying IP addresses, this trick is often a great way to circumvent internet restrictions.
The same principle applies to short URLs. It’s unlikely that a small employer or school has blocked all the short URLs that point to a site. You’ll often enjoy some success in bypassing school-blocked sites if you try to use them.
You can find the IP address of a site by opening Command Prompt as an admin, then typing tracert followed by the domain name; for example, tracert
5. Use Tor
When you use the Tor network to browse the web, your traffic is taken on a long journey through thousands of nodes all around the world.
This process makes it almost impossible for a regular website to know where the request originated, so it’s unlikely to get caught in any blocking filters.
Be aware that Tor and the dark web is not completely anonymous. Government authorities can, and do, monitor persons of interest on the network.
Learn More About How to Get Past Blocked Sites
Our preferred method for accessing blocked sites and bypassing internet restrictions on a regular basis is to use a VPN.
If you would like to learn more about using VPNs (along with some of the other methods for getting round online blocks), you should learn more about how to bypass Wi-Fi and internet restrictions.
How to Bypass Blocked Sites: 5 Methods to TryYou’re at work or school, but you want to check on Facebook, or watch something on YouTube. It’s blocked – so how do you get around this and ruin your productivity?
Read Next
About The Author
Dan Price
(1607 Articles Published)
Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Director since July 2020. Reach out to him for inquires about sponsored content, affiliate agreements, promotions, and any other forms of partnership. You can also find him roaming the show floor at CES in Las Vegas every year, say hi if you’re going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.
More
From Dan Price
Subscribe to our newsletter
Join our newsletter for tech tips, reviews, free ebooks, and exclusive deals!
Click here to subscribe
10 Easy Ways Kids Can Bypass Internet Filters – FamiSafe
There is a concern in most of us who are parents to try to take care of what our children do when they surf the internet. We are really apprehensive about controlling the access of our children on the Internet by putting different parental controls on the devices they have. The filters or blockages in the Web sites prevent our kids from accessing potentially harmful or inappropriate sites. Moreover, it is true that the digital kids of this digital era are now more advanced in technology than us. We must assume that their competence in these issues is superior. And they know the tricks on how to bypass internet filters.
10 Easy Ways Kids Can Bypass Internet Filters
Here are 10 easy ways depicted below that parents should know how their children could get around internet filters though those are restricted—
1. Discover the password
One of the most common ways to internet filter bypass is to change the password. It is not uncommon for parents to ever share their email password for a specific case with their children. So, kids can enter using this password, temporarily change the parental control and when they finish, return to leave everything as it was without a trace of the “crime”.
2. Connect to the neighbor’s Wi-Fi
It is another trick, and this is very difficult to control. If we have a careless neighbor with the Wi-Fi open or, simply, when passing by his house he has given us his password, it is possible that his signal reaches us in our house and children easily get around internet filters.
3. Download a VPN
One of the most common methods of internet filter bypass is to use a VPN to browse anonymously. A VPN routes traffic to another private network, usually anonymously, allowing you to navigate as if you were using a different device in a different geographic location. A VPN routes all Internet traffic through this connection, not just the web browser.
4. Use private browsing
All browsers now offer a private browsing mode that does not record visited sites or downloaded files. When kids surf the Internet, their browser stores all the details of their surfing session on the hard disk. By opening a private browser window, kids will not surf anonymously, but at least no information about visited sites will be stored on their device.
5. Use a free proxy website
The easiest way to get around internet filters is to use a proxy. Proxies are often used by kids in their devices hoping to access blocked content in a geographic area and offer greater anonymity while browsing.
6. Google Translate
Google Translator can be used as a substitution for an internet filter bypass. Probably many parents do not know that not only phrases or text can be translated and that if we put a URL it translates a whole page. In this process, the page becomes, in the eyes of parental control, under the servers of Google when kids can access almost any content.
7. Bypass via extensions
Hola and ProxMate are some extensions that teens can use to bypass internet filters. They are available for both Chrome and Firefox browsers and are also easy to use.
8. Portable browsers
Many browsers have “hidden” modes that are also usually blocked but things like the Tor Browser, which can be carried on a simple USB and not have it installed on your device, redirects traffic to different places worldwide to hide the user’s identity, which makes it almost impossible to know what you are visiting at any time.
9. Use the IP instead of the URL
Blocked websites are sometimes stored as a list of URL’s and using the IP of the website might work in some cases. To obtain the IP address of any website, teens ping the domain from the command line at the command prompt. Using the IP is a simple way to bypass internet filter.
10. Viewing “accidental” images
Although you cannot enter one or another website, if we navigate with the “incognito” or “hidden” mode of our browser and we pass a search through the “Images” tab of Google, we can skip any content restriction. Most of the photos that appear there are cached in the own servers of Google, the reason why it is not considered that they are lodged in sensible webs and, therefore, pass the filter.
How to Prevent Children from Non-Blocked Porn Sites
Blocking porn pages is a simple job, but in the same way, children are extremely intelligent individuals and end up breaking barriers. FamiSafe, the king of the parental control software for porn blocking, comes to solve this problem with 100% security requirements that any parent would like. It limits kids’ access to web pages with porn content and they cannot internet filter bypass. FamiSaf can filter internet content in real-time to block pornography and inappropriate content effectually.
Features:
Block Porn & Inappropriate Contents
Track GPS Location of Your Kids
Limit Screen Time of Your Teens
Block Games & Apps
Flexibility in Control
How to—
Step 1:
The first thing to do is installing the FamiSafe app on both devices – your child’s and yours.
Location Tracking & Geo-fencing
App Blocker
Web Filtering
Screen Time Control
Smart Parental Control Setting
Step 2:
Secondly, you have to register for a FamiSafe account within the app on your own device. Then, with identity “Kid” on your teen’s device, do sign into the account.
Step 3:
Now, motivate the service on the device of your toddler. In the case of an Android device, you should consent to some permission requests in the course of the installation process. And in the case of an iPhone device, you need to install a management file of your kid’s device.
Step 4:
Lastly, sign into the same account on your own device as “Parent”. And, both devices will be connected automatically. After the whole process is over, you can control and monitor your kid’s device to restrict any non-blocked porn sites from your own device.
More features:
There are more interesting features in FamiSafe that make it outstanding. You can block your kid’s smartphone at a particular time or place. You can also restrict your teen’s access to unsuitable websites and apps.
Leaving a mobile terminal in the hands of our children can be a nest of worries. Constant exposure in social networks, the possibility of falling by mistake in economic transactions, and, of course, easy access to the thousands of porn websites that flood the network. Moreover, there are some of the easiest and most effective methods to get around internet filters for the child. Fortunately, this will no longer be a concern thanks to the FamiSafe app that will allow definitely block porn websites on your children’s mobile. If you choose FamiSafe you must not make a wrong decision as a mindful parent. Without any charges, you can download it from the App Store or Google Play.
How-to
Internet Filter
10 Easy Ways Kids Can Bypass Internet Filters | Parent Should Know
7 Methods to Access Blocked Websites Bypassing Streamyx …
Home » Online Services » 7 Methods to Access Blocked Websites Bypassing Streamyx Internet Filter
Malaysia is one of those countries that implements Internet censorship by forcing all Malaysian Internet Service Providers to block access to certain websites containing pornographic, politics, file sharing and malicious content. Thousands of websites have been blocked since this practice started and surely the numbers will only continue to grow. Accessing any of the blocked websites will report that “This page can’t be displayed” are a couple of ways for an ISP to block access to websites and Malaysian ISPs often block DNS resolution queries by null routing to localhost. If you ping or run a dig or nslookup on the blocked website, you will see that the domain name resolves to 127. 0. 1 and the website won’t load because that address points back to your own doesn’t matter which country you are from or which ISP you are using, we’re confident that at least one of the seven methods we’ve shared below will help you access blocked websites.
1. Change Your DNSNormally your router is configured to use the DNS from your ISP to translate hostnames to IP addresses. If the ISP is using DNS based filtering it will effectively block all intended websites. Bypassing it is as easy as changing to a different public DNS offered by Google, OpenDNS, Cloudflare and JumperA free tool called DNS Jumper is able to change your DNS to something else in a few clicks. All you need to do is download the program, run it, choose a DNS server from the list and click the Apply DNS button. You might want to click on the Flush DNS button and also restart your web browser to clear any DNS caching. Another advantage in using DNS Jumper is it automatically backs up the original DNS server address so you can easily roll back the DNS changes by selecting “Restore” from the DNS server wnload DNS JumperNirSoft QuickSetDNSIf you want to use something else instead of DNS Jumper, there is another portable tool called QuickSetDNS by NirSoft where you can easily configure your network adapter to use another DNS service. QuickSetDNS only has three custom DNS services in its list by default, but they are well known, reliable and will unblock restricted websites if your ISP uses DNS filtering. All you have to do is right click on the Cloudflare, Google or Quad9 DNS entry and select Set Active wnload QuickSetDNS2. Browse Via Web ProxyA web proxy is a convenient method to access blocked websites without installing software or changing system settings. A web proxy effectively behaves as if someone else on the internet fetches the requested webpage and you view what they have received in your browser. As long as the web proxy websites themselves are not blocked by your ISP, this method will you need to do is launch your web browser and visit a web proxy website, then enter the blocked URL that you would like to access. The web proxy sometimes has options to enable or disable cookies, scripts and encrypt the URL, make sure they are turned off if the page does not load of the better services is HidemyAss! Web Proxy which is reliable, easy to use and includes proxy locations for the USA, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the Czech Republic. There were a few ad popups on the starting page but we didn’t get anything while browsing the proxied websites. An ad blocker is recommended while using any web proxy services as some might show a lot of ads or intrusive HidemyAss! Web ProxyThere are many web proxy services around, a few others we tried were ProxySite, a number of different proxies at Free Proxy List that can also help get around Youtube blocking, and UnblockVideos that can help you get to video streaming/hosting sites. 3. Install a VPNA VPN is similar to a proxy except it routes all system traffic through the VPN server. Nearly all fully featured VPNs are commercial services but you can find a few that offer free usage with some limitations such as reduced speed, bandwidth usage or restricted spot ShieldHotspot Shield is a free and ad-supported VPN software that has been around for many years. There are some restrictions in place but if you only want to browse websites, then it may be all you need. In addition to the Windows desktop application, there are Hotspot Shield apps for iOS, Android, and the Windows stall, press the Start button and Hotspot Shield will connect to a US based VPN server. Other locations are disabled and premium only options. You get 500MB of free bandwidth per day which will reset after 24 hours. There will be a nag after various consumed amounts such as 50% used. Hotspot Shield has a useful feature called a kill switch which disconnects the internet if the VPN stops wnload Hotspot ShieldOkayFreedom VPNIf you want your VPN to connect to something other than US based servers, OkayFreedom is another service that offers some free bandwidth. There is some confusion over how much traffic allowance you actually get with the free version. The website says you get 2GB per month but after installation, the software told us we had 9. 8GB per month for nearly 6 months. OkayFreedom offers a connection to 23 countries, all of which are available in the free version. There is mention of OkayFreedom being ad supported but we didn’t notice anything during testing. That’s not to say ads won’t show up at some point though. There are often promotions on giveaway sites for OkayFreedom to increase the bandwidth limits, which is something to keep an eye out wnload OkayFreedom4. Tor BrowserTor Browser is an open source project based around Mozilla Firefox and is considered one of the most secure ways to browse the internet without being tracked by online entities. It works by routing your Internet traffic through a number of random servers in the Tor network which means ISPs and other organizations don’t know where your traffic is going. Effectively, you should be able to browse any website you’re unlucky enough that your country or ISP blocks Tor, there is an option built in to help get around the problem. It does this by using unlisted relays (servers) that help obfuscate Tor traffic to make it harder to detect. Do not torrent over the Tor network as that is not what it’s designed for. It is also not recommended to install other Firefox browser extensions and you should just use Tor Browser as it wnload Tor Browser BundleOn page 2 we’ll show several more options to bypass internet filtering, whether it’s from Streamyx or any other ISP.
Frequently Asked Questions about bypass porn filter
How do I bypass content filter?
Proxy Websites. Probably one of the oldest methods of bypassing web filters, proxy websites enable users to anonymously connect to websites through outside servers. … VPNs. VPNS or Virtual Private Networks, work as a tunnel between two devices. … Browser Extensions. … Stolen Passwords. … Firefox from USB. … Changing Network Proxies.May 2, 2019
How do I bypass proxy avoidance filters?
Go to the New Proxy Sites website and use its “Recent Proxies” list to access new proxies that haven’t been filtered by the proxy avoidance filters operating on your network. New Proxy Sites delivers a variety of proxy site lists that are updated regularly to ensure that you get access to quality proxies.
How do I bypass video restrictions on websites?
Use a VPN. VPN or virtual private network is a popular way to bypass geo-restrictions. Like proxies, VPN also spoofs your IP address and thus changing your location. But unlike proxy sites, that can only work on the browser level, VPN can also work on the system level (if you use their desktop tool).Dec 26, 2016