10 Effective Ways to Access Blocked Website (#9 is Awesome)

Have you been blocked from accessing a website you want to access? It might interest you to know that website blocks can be bypassed easily. The article below highlights some of the methods you can use to bypass a website block in other to regain access.

Top Ways to Access Blocked Websites

There are about 1.7 billion websites hosted online and this number fluctuates daily as more websites are hosted and others are lost. One interesting fact about this is that not all of the websites are available to you.

Some of them require payment such as the ones hidden behind paywalls, others require you to have special permission and authorization in other to access. However, these are only a few – the larger part of the blocks on the Internet is based on your location or your network provider which could be the Wi-Fi you are connected to.

Websites are increasingly becoming localized and block users from accessing certain content on their platforms because of their location. The block could also happen because you used the platform against the established terms and your IP gets blacklisted. On the other hand, the block can come from the authority as in the case of China maintaining a list of sites Internet users in China cannot access.

It could also be from your work or school environment for productivity’s sake. Most of these blocks depend on your IP address except if there is special permission or the content is hidden behind a paywall. In this article, you will be shown ways you can still access web content even when the website blocks you.


Top 10 Methods to Open Blocked Sites

Top Methods of Unblocking Websites

Websites and authorities are quick to block users from accessing their platform especially if they decide you are not the type of audience they want to receive.

However, current blocking technology is still not effective at keeping users blocked except if the users in question are not experienced. If you have been blocked from accessing a website, then use one of the methods below to unblock the website and regain access to the content you are interested in.


1. Install and Activate a VPN Software

Activate a VPN Software

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It helps create a secure and private connection by tunneling your web traffic via private networks owned by the specific VPN service.

The end goal of VPN services is to provide you with privacy and security. Privacy in terms of keeping your real IP address hidden from websites you visit, ISP, and other agencies, and companies looking to get hold of your IP address.

It does this by masking your real IP address with a different one before the request gets to the intended website. For the security advantage it provides, VPN encrypts your traffic from the system level, making it difficult for eavesdroppers to see the content of your request.

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You can install and activate VPN software to access blocked websites. This is because VPN software will provide you with an alternative IP address, which would be from a different location, giving you access to geo-targeted content. Take, for instance, the BBC iPlayer service is blocked for users outside of the UK.

For you to access the service, you will need to use a UK IP address and VPN software to provide you with such. The best VPN services are paid as free VPN softwares that come with issues ranging from slow connectivity speed to lack of security features to ensure. Your security and privacy. Some of the best high-quality VPNs that are affordable include ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and SurfShark.


2. Configure Proxies on your Browser

Configure Proxies on Browser

Other services that have a striking resemblance to VPN services are proxy servers. However, you can see them as a strip-down version of VPN services. This is because all they do is act as an intermediary between your computer and web servers, providing you alternative IP addresses to mask your real IP.

How this works is simple. If you have proxies configured, your web requests do not go to the intended website directly. It first goes to the proxy server, which then reroutes it to the website. Because the request didn’t get to the website directly, it is the IP address of the proxy server that is seen and not yours.

Interestingly, you would not even need to install proxies in other to use them. Web browsers and many client software have support for proxy configuration. However, you will need to pay to get high-quality proxiesBright Data, Smartproxy, and MyPrivateProxy are some of the best providers out there.

It can be argued that both proxies and VPN do basically the same thing – mask your IP address. However, proxies have the advantage of providing/allowing you the opportunity to use and rotate as many IP addresses as you want while VPN software is restrictive in such aspects.

Interestingly, VPNs provide you with better security and work from the system level, among other advanced features than proxies that work at the application level.


3. Use the Tor Browser

Tor Browser overview

If you are conversant with online security, there is a high chance that you have heard about The Onion Router (TOR) project. The Tor project makes it possible to avoid getting trailed by browsing the Internet privately, providing you protection against tracking and enabling censorship bypass.

This is made possible by a network of volunteer nodes from around the world. Online VPN and proxies that route your request only ones, Tor routes your web requests multiple times in a bid to conceal your identity and activities online. The Tor project requires you to use a specialized web browser known as the Tor Browser to access the network. Unlike the above two, using this method to access blocked content is free.

The network utilizes multiple layers of encryption, encrypting and replaying your web traffic 3 times before it gets to the intended website. It does not only stop there, the Tor Browser would also provide you protection against fingerprinting which is becoming prevalent these days as IP tracking has proven to be failing.

With this browser installed on your computer, you can unblock websites if the restriction is IP-based. However, it is important you know that the network is slow. Some websites can also detect traffic routed via the Tor network. If that happens, this method becomes ineffective for unblocking such websites.


4. Use a Wi-Fi Network or Demand a Change of IP Address

Use a Wi-Fi Network Sometimes, all you need to do to access a website is to change your IP address. This can be the case if your IP address has been blacklisted by the website because the IP address has been used for spamming it or used for other tasks against their usage terms.

It could be that you are the culprit or someone that use the IP address in the past use it for such. Whichever is the case, changing your IP address would do the magic provided it is not a website that you are logged in and the block affects your account. There are many ways you can change your IP address depending on what you have at your disposal.

If you were connected to your mobile data before the block, you can switch to a Wi-Fi network to regain access since doing so would ditch your IP address and use that of the Wi-Fi to access the website. Likewise, if the issue is with your Wi-Fi network, switching back to your mobile network should provide you access.

Depending on your Internet service provider (ISP), you can also request a change of IP address from your ISP. Keeping your mobile data off overnight can also change your IP address depending on your ISP.


5. Use Internet Archive

Internet Archive homepage

The Internet Archive is a web service that keeps historical snapshots of websites and applications on the Internet so that changes on the website can be tracked. This web service also makes it possible for Internet users to access web content such as web pages, books, documents, videos, and audio files even after the original website goes offline. It is one of the largest databases of web content on the Internet and achieves that via web crawling and scraping.

One use of this web service that is not popular among Internet users is using it to access blocked websites. If you want to access content that must not be real-time, then you can visit the Internet Archive and enter the URL and you will be provided with the different snapshots and versions available. But mind you – the content you are seeing is historical and not real-time.


6. Use Google Translate

Google Translate

Google Translate is arguable the number one website and web text translation tool on the Internet. Using this tool, web services can read and understand the content of a website written in a language they do not understand. The main use of Google Translate is to translate the textual content on a web page from one language to another so that language wouldn’t be a barrier to understanding the content of a web page.

One subtle use of this tool is that you can use it to access blocked websites. This is because when you are accessing a website via Google Translate, the IP address being used to access it is not your IP address but that of Google and as such, the website will not know you are a blocked user, thereby granting you access.


7. Accessing Websites Via Web Proxy Sites

Web Proxy Sites

Web proxies act like regular proxies described above, they act as an intermediary between your browser and the websites on the Internet and mask your real IP address with a different one. However, they still differ from regular proxies in the sense that you are not provided a proxy address and port as you would in the case of regular proxy servers. Instead, the web proxy is accessible online as a website.

Some of the popular web proxies include ProxySite, Hide Me, and Hidester. All of these are free web proxies and you can use them by visiting their URL. These web proxies have a list of countries you can visit the web through which you will get IP addresses from.


8. Using SSH Tunnelling

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Another way you can access and unblock websites is to use SSH Tunnels. This can be a little technical depending on how versed you are with computers. It requires a basic skill in using command prompt. Before you would use this, you are required to have an SSH account. If you are using Mac, you can enter the command below. For Windows users, Putty can be used.

ssh -D 12345 [email protected]

If you send the command, a server running on port 12345 will start. You will be required to provide a username and password for your SSH account. After you have provided the correct username and password and the authentication is successful, you can minimize the Terminal. Launch Firefox and go to Network under settings and select “Manual Proxy Configurations”.

In the SOCKS Host, enter 127.0.0.1 and 12345 for the port. Check the Socks v5 option and then click OK. Any blocked website you visit using the Firefox browser with this setting will be unlocked and access granted as you are not visiting using your IP address.


9. Access The Website Via Its IP address

Access The Website Via Its IP address

For this method to work, the block must be from your ISP or network admin. If it is from the website, then there is no way this method would work. The method exploits the fact that most network admins that block websites only block their domain and not their IP address.

Interestingly, IP addresses of websites are the actual address – the domains are used to make them memorable. If your network admin blocks websites using their domain, then simply using their IP address will grant you access. To find out the IP address of a website, use the command below in Command Prompt (Windows) or Terminal (Mac).

ping domain.com

The IP address will be shown usually in numerical form with dots. Copy it and paste it in your address bar then click enter.


10. Unblock use Browser Extensions

Now there are many free VPN or proxy Browser Extensions online, with those extensions that install on your browser, you cna easily bypass websites, we already write a post about, Proxy Browser Extensions to Unblock any Blocked Websites, you can easily find those Extensions to try your lucky!

Conclusion

Looking at the above, you can see that there are many methods you can use to unblock websites and Acces restricted geo-content. From our research, the best way to access blocked websites is to use VPN software as they provide you both security and privacy which are important in thew today’s Internet.

One thing you need to know is that unblocking a website can be illegal depending on your location. For this reason, it is important you find out the rule regarding unblocking websites from a law professional before going ahead to do that.


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