How to bypass internet filters
Level of difficulty: EASY
Web-based censorship is an extremely common phenomenon in any country where internet has spread wide into social and academic institutions and work areas. Offices also restrict internet access to employees, preventing them form accessing certain websites and web-pages. Usually, these restrictions are in place by running programs called ‘internet filters’ that are supposed to actively monitor browsed content and regulate/restrict internet browsing or downloading. Normally, one would not be able to absolutely debilitate or pull down the ‘internet filter’ without having administrative control or some kind of passwords. However, that doesn’t mean that these ‘internet filters’ are absolute, as there are ways used all over the world to circumvent and bypass these filters to regularly access the internet.
Materials Needed:- Specialized software
Step 1
Usually, the most popular filters found in place all over academic institutions and workplaces actively ban people from accessing pornography, and most commonly, social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook. So how does one bypass the filters to get unhindered access? Here are some tried-and-tested methods.
Step 2
Accessing any secured, blocked or SSL (Secure Socket Layer) website needs to be done through the browser window. The user should type ‘https’ as the prefix to a web address, instead of typing ‘http’ in the browser bar. Any competent website translator can also help us bypass internet filters. Translating the webpage into one of the known languages often unlocks all filters placed on that particular web address. Examples of such translating programs include Google’s Translator and AltaVista’s Babelfish.
Step 3
Another awesome trick that is great to surf regularized content over the internet is to view cached pages of the webpage. It must be remembered that recently updated information could not be viewed here, as the pages are cached at an earlier date. This effectively discounts social networking sites where updates are quite regular. However, using Google as the search engine, just select ‘Cache’ option instead of directly clicking the link for a searched page. Using this, one would be able to see the webpage without any filters and blocks (though the recent updates to the page might be missing).
Step 4
Setting up a proxy in Mozilla Firefox is also advisable. After selecting a proxy address that you want to use, go to 'Tools' from your Mozilla Firefox toolbar, and then 'Options' and select the 'General' tab. Select 'Connections' and then check the 'Manual Proxy Configuration.' Type the address of the web-based proxy and its port (search it up if you don’t know). Choose 'Use this proxy server for all protocols' in the check-box, if you want to use this proxy server for all of your Internet protocols. This way, one could use proxy to bypass internet security.