[Guide] Use Proxies to Unblock Websites

[Sleepy_Sentry]

As a new member, I thought I'd do a bit to contribute to the forum by writing a little tutorial about a technology topic I'm knowledgeable in.

In a society where many people use the Internet at work and school as part of their everyday activities, it's no wonder that many corporations and education institutions block a good portion of the web. Sites blocked may be limited to adult content, but often include popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook as well as popular gaming sites, including Civ Fanatics.

What is a web proxy? How do they work?
Often referred to as "proxy" or "website unblocker", a web proxy is a special sort of site that loads websites through its own servers and delivers them to your computer, which allows the web filters and firewalls responsible for website blocks to be bypassed. Simply put, they are a middle man of sorts between you and the Internet. Web proxies are a popular way of getting around website blocks.

Proxies are pretty straightforward and easy to use. Say for instance my company decided to block Civ Fanatics. If I wanted to unblock it, I would go the the Internet address of a proxy site (see below for a list of good proxies). I would then enter the URL of Civ Fanatics then click "Submit", like I would with any other web form. The proxy would then take me to what is known as a "proxified" page, which would be Civ Fanatics in its unblocked form. From there I could browse the site as I normally would, except it wouldn't be blocked. Pretty cool, huh? Proxies work with just about every website out there.

Where can I find proxies?
There are thousands of proxies on the web, but many of them just plain suck. Many are riddled with pop-ups, while others are slow as a snail. Below are a few proxies I've used in the past and recommend to friends.
The Unblock
Unblockalot.com
Maple Unblock
Geek Unblock
Digi Unblock

You might notice that a few sites look kind of weird with proxies. Not all sites work perfectly with proxies, but most do. Proxies also cannot load flash video. This means sites like YouTube and MiniClip won't work with proxies. This proxy is an exception. It will unblock some flash video sites, including YouTube. It doesn't work with many of them, however.

All the proxies I try to use are blocked!
Some web filters can detect and block proxy websites. Network admins are constantly on the lookout for new proxies to block. If you find all the proxies you try are blocked, try using this website, Houston Great Books. It's a stealth proxy disguised as a ready website .

I hope this guide is of use to everyone in this forum. Your school or workplace might can block Civ Fanatics, but now you know a way to get around it!

 

[Atlas14]

You're at least 2 years too late for me. My highschool blocked everything with Bess, and I couldn't find any free proxies to bypass it for more than a day.

Thanks though, I may need it in the future

Edit: I tried the HoustonGreatBooks site, and it said "error" every time.

 

[Chairman Meow]

If you have admin rights on the computer you're using, you can use Tor to evade filters.

If you don't, well, what are you doing looking up porn on someone else's machine?

 

[GVBN]

Below are a few proxies I've used in the past and recommend to friends.

Shameless promotion eh? According to WHOIS you are the owner of all those domains

You're probably trying to steal our passwords, aren't you?

 

[Sleepy_Sentry]

Shameless promotion eh? According to WHOIS you are the owner of all those domains

You're probably trying to steal our passwords, aren't you?

You caught me. Nice detective work.

I don't care about anyone's passwords. My proxies do not store any data entered by users (except cookies and stuff like that needed for user sessions), and neither do the vast majority of web proxies. If you want proof, I would be happy to email you the source code for one of my sites.

I guess you could call my post shameless advertising. But you can't say it didn't help people. Not only am I introducing people to proxies who have never heard of of them, but I am also helping Civ Fanatics, too. Since people here will now know how to use proxies, they can visit the forums at school and work, which would give Civ Fanatics traffic it wouldn't normally have.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Most schools nowadays have a content filter, so even through a proxy you wont be able to visit a site. A better way could be either google cache, or google translate:

Google.com/translate?langpair=en|en&u=www.blockedsite.com

replace www.blockedsite.com with the address of the site you wanna view. Im not sure how well this will work with all filters, but on occasion its allowed me to bypass my schools filter. Then the librarian saw what I was doing on the monitor program...

 

[Quintillus]

Hmm...thanks for the guide, even if you do own all the domains. The school I just graduated from recently upgraded from Bess to a new filter that's much better and I wasn't having any luck getting around it with any proxy sites. Maybe one of these would work.

What I'd really like to try, though, is setting up a proxy server via Internet Explorer options. I figured out how to do that, but couldn't get a server address that was up and running. Here's the instructions on how to get there, as in the IE 7 help (might be slightly different on IE6):

To change proxy server settings
Click to open Internet Explorer.

Click the Tools button, and then click Internet Options.

Click the Connections tab, and then click LAN settings.

Select the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box.

In the Address box, type the address of the proxy server.

In the Port box, type the port number.

If your network requires separate proxy addresses for different services, such as HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP, click the Advanced button, and then type the individual proxy server addresses to use.

When you are finished making changes, click OK until you return to Internet Explorer.

If I could ever find an address that works, that might be a much better method of getting around the new filter. I know a lot of my friends would appreciate a way around the new filter starting in a few weeks.

And Bess isn't that great of a filter. Two of my favorite tricks were using Google's cache, and going to google.fr and translating the sites into French. This works with other languages Google supports, too - google.es will translate it into Spanish. So long as you're decent at your language course and don't mind a few inaccuracies, it works decently well.

Even better, Bess doesn't block any https:// sites. As a result, half the school was connecting to Gmail via https://gmail.google.com every day. It also doesn't block .edu sites, so if you get a .edu email address you can use that. Some universities give them to admitted students before they accept the offer of admission - and they terminate the adresses right away if you turn down admission (I still have one from a school I turned down in April).

Another proxy that a lot of students were using to access MySpace is http://byelarus.com. Find the Access MySpace, US Armed Forces link about 60% of the way down the page and click on that to register. I haven't used it, but I've seen it at work and it works well. Not sure if it works for the Web at large. There also is an Anonymous Proxy link in the upper-left; I don't know if that is seperate from the MySpace proxy or not.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

But...supposed the proxy itself is blocked.

They are at my frigging school.

 

[Sleepy_Sentry]

But...supposed the proxy itself is blocked.

They are at my frigging school.

houstongreatbooks.org

 

[Murky]

I would be careful. People have lost jobs over surfing the net too much. The blocks are there to deter people from wasting too much time at work.