How To Bypass Ip Blocks
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
How to Bypass a School Firewall: Tips and Warnings – MakeUseOf
Knowledge of how to bypass blocked websites at school is a valuable commodity amongst students. While the freedom to do whatever you please is tempting, is it entirely safe to do so?
Let’s break down how to get past a school firewall, as well as some reasons why you may not want to.
How to Bypass a School Firewall
There are several tricks to getting around a school firewall. It depends on how the firewall works; some may monitor what you type in the address bar, while others will actively monitor the traffic. Give these a shot and see which one works best.
1. Use a Proxy Site to Get Around URL Restrictions
Image Credit: Milesjpool/Wikimedia
Proxy sites are services that handle your requests for you. These servers are handy when you’re trying to circumvent a firewall because the proxy handles all the surfing for you.
If your institution blocks a game’s website, it’ll likely look for you typing the URL into the address bar. A web proxy server circumvents this because you’re not visiting the game’s website; you’re going to the proxy’s page and telling it to go to the page instead. It then shows you everything on the game’s website, while your school firewall only sees the proxy’s URL.
For example, if you wanted to play Minecraft for free on your browser, your school may have already blocked the domain. As such, when you go to play it, the firewall spots that you’re visiting the Minecraft website and stops you.
However, if you access the website via a proxy server, the firewall won’t see that the traffic is from the Minecraft website. Instead, it’ll only see your proxy server’s details, which just so happens to be sending you data from the Minecraft website!
The best part is, you don’t need to use or install special software to use one. If your school’s computers dislike you installing programs on them, using a proxy in a browser will easily skirt around this restriction.
If you plan to use a free web proxy, be careful. There are plenty of reasons why you should avoid free proxy servers, so be aware of these if you want to try a free proxy site.
Alternatively, companies such as ExpressVPN offer a special SOCKS5 proxy service that you can use to skirt around a firewall. “SOCKS5” sounds complicated, but it’s just the name of the latest proxy server technology. It should work just like any other proxy service.
2. Use a VPN to Encrypt Your Traffic
Image Credit: vaeenma/DepositPhotos
VPNs, on the other hand, allow you to bypass firewalls by encrypting your traffic. Proxies get around the restrictions by giving you the banned website via a whitelisted one, but a VPN protects you by not allowing the firewall to see your browsing in the first place.
It achieves this by taking all of the information your computer is about to send out, and encrypting it so that prying eyes can’t see what you’re sending. The computer then sends this encrypted data to a VPN server, which unscrambles your data, reads where you want to go, and goes there. It carries its traffic back encrypted, which skirts around the firewall.
VPNs are good for more than skirting around school firewalls. Check these reasons why you should be using a VPN, all of which affect your life outside of school.
If you’re unsure about which VPN to use, why not save some money and get ExpressVPN for 49 percent off? It’s one of our favorite VPN services for beginners and doesn’t skimp on your privacy.
3. Type the IP Address of the Website
When you type the name of a website into your browser, it is converted into an IP address. This occurs because computers have no idea what names are; it has to convert them to an IP address using a Domain Name Server (DNS).
This knowledge comes in handy if the firewall is looking for domain names instead of IP addresses. By typing the number into the address bar, you can visit the webpage without informing the firewall that you’re going there.
Unfortunately, it’s not apparent what each website’s IP address is. You can use WhatIsMyIPAddress’s lookup tool to find it.
4. Use Google Translate as an Impromptu Proxy Server
Funnily enough, Google Translate is useful as a way to circumvent a firewall! You have to use Google Translate’s “translate page” feature to use it. When Google Translate translates a page, it loads the page the server, translates it, and sends the result to you.
Sound familiar? It should—it’s doing the same job as a proxy server. This little trick makes Google Translate an inconspicuous choice if all of the proxy websites are blocked.
5. Use a Smartphone Hotspot on Mobile Data
If you can’t figure out how to bypass the school Wi-Fi, you could try turning your smartphone into a hotspot. That way, you can connect to the internet without needing to go through the school’s system. It will eat away the phone’s data, but it removes the hassle of bypassing the school firewall.
If you want to learn more, be sure to read how to connect mobile internet to a PC or laptop.
The Repercussions for Bypassing a School Firewall
As much as you hate the school firewall, it’s there for a good reason. Not only does it enforce the idea that a school is a place of learning, but it can also protect you and the school from illegal or malicious content.
1. You Could Have Your Personal Information Stolen
If you use a proxy server, your traffic is going through a third-party server to reach the destination. The thing is, how confident are you that the server hosts aren’t looking at all the traffic you’re sending?
This is one of the bigger reasons why it’s safer to wait until you get home. When you use free services, often they’re free because the developers make money off of you, somehow. This can be due to ads, or they could harvest your personal information to sell on.
2. You Could Get a Virus
Even worse, free services may not be too strict on what advertisements they show you. This could lead to your computer catching a nasty virus, which could then spread to other computers in the school.
Virus outbreaks in school aren’t unheard of; ItemLive reported on how Lynn Schools had their internet shut down by a virus for a whole week. Before you get any ideas, the school didn’t close down for the week; it was school as usual, just without any internet to spend time on!
3. You Could Get Suspended or Expelled
It’s highly likely your institution has a use policy for their computers. These detail what you can and can’t do with them, as well as what to expect if you’re caught performing said actions.
These terms may state that, by circumventing the security, the school can ban from the computer network. If you’re banned, you can’t use the internet for fun browsing anymore. Even worse, you can’t use them for studying—which is a huge disadvantage for your future work!
4. You Could Face Legal Action
While using the methods above aren’t illegal, you can access unlawful content using them. If you’re caught accessing illegal content, the school may decide to pass the information onto the authorities. If this happens, you’ll be facing legal ramifications for what you’ve done.
Workarounds That Don’t Bypass the Firewall
Of course, there are ways you can perform specific actions without having to bypass a firewall. These are safer (and sometimes school-supported! ) ways of using the internet without the above issues.
Chatting With Google Docs
Hopefully, your school lets you use Google Docs for work. Google Docs also has a chat feature that allows you to collaborate with other people on the same document.
Of course, while you can use the chat feature to talk about productive things such as homework and studies, you can always use it as an impromptu messaging service. Who knows—maybe you can do homework within the document while you chat!
Play Educational Games
While they may not be as fun as Fortnite, educational games are a solid choice. If a teacher catches you playing something that’s helping you learn, why would they stop you?
If you can’t find any games that teach you what you want to learn, you can always play typing games. This helps improve your words-per-minute, which is handy in this digital age. The 10 Fast Fingers game, for instance, puts you in a race against other people to type a passage.
Learn a Useful Skill
If you’re bored and none of the game websites work, why not use the time to learn a cool new skill? For example, there are plenty of sites with free online computer programming courses, so you can learn to code in your downtime. Not only are these websites productive, but your teacher definitely won’t disapprove of your learning during your spare time!
Using Technology Efficiently at School
Firewalls are not installed to annoy you; they help promote learning and keep you safe from dangerous and illegal content. Skirting around them isn’t impossible; however, with the potential repercussions and the alternatives available, you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it.
If you’re always trying to burn time during lunch breaks, try our selection of things to do when you’re bored online.
Microsoft Launches Windows 11: Here’s How to Get ItWindows 11 goes live, and you can get it now!
Read Next
About The Author
Simon Batt
(703 Articles Published)
A Computer Science BSc graduate with a deep passion for all things security. After working for an indie game studio, he found his passion for writing and decided to use his skill set to write about all things tech.
More
From Simon Batt
Subscribe to our newsletter
Join our newsletter for tech tips, reviews, free ebooks, and exclusive deals!
Click here to subscribe
How do I get an IP address removed from a blacklist?
(Go to our Blacklist Check page to find out if your IP address is listed on an anti-spam database. This article explains why that happens and how to get off a blacklist. )
Each blacklist database has its own criteria for flagging IP addresses and compiling its own list of online offenders. Those criteria could include a variety of “listings”: technical, policy, and evidence-based.
Technical listings occur mostly from mail-server configuration issues, such as missing or incorrect reverse DNS records, missing or incorrect banner greetings, and mail servers operating within a suspicious range of IP addresses.
Policy listings are based on an operator that does not wish to receive email from certain countries, or ISPs, that have a history of not honoring “unsubscribe” requests.
Evidence-based listings are those where the operator has received direct (or indirect) evidence that an IP address has been involved in sending unsolicited emails.
If your IP address has been blacklisted and you want to investigate, you’ll need to visit the blacklist’s website and do a lookup on your IP address. Most blacklist databases will provide general listing reasons, but don’t list specific email addresses tied to blacklisted IP addresses.
Getting “unblacklisted. ”
If you’re able to find out why you were blacklisted, you can try to get it reversed. (You may want to work with someone who is technically savvy to better help you. )
To start with, take time to ensure your network and mail server are configured correctly and all the details are in order for resolving the issues, as prescribed by the blacklist. For example, they may ask you to correct both forward and reverse DNS records, as well as SMTP banners. In addition, you can do the following:
Scan all computers on your network for viruses
See if there are any known and needed “patches” (updates and fixes) for your operating system
Configure routers more securely
Establish and enforce stronger passwords
Following the blacklist-removal process.
You want to be removed from any blacklists because databases often share IP addresses that have been listed. If you think you’ve fixed things on your end, go back to the blacklist’s site and follow their instructions for the IP address removal process. Here’s what you’re likely to come across:
Self-Service Removal. There are a few blacklists with a self-service removal feature that lets you take your IP address off the list without much trouble. However, you’ll want to make sure you’ve resolved any issues before doing this. If you don’t and your IP address gets listed again, it won’t be easy to get it removed that next time.
Time-Based Removal. Most blacklists have a built-in, automatic process that removes lower-level listings (IP addresses that are light offenders) within a week or two. But if the IP address had sent spam more than once or did a high volume, the time period will be longer.
Be nice…and see what happens.
When you’re trying to get off a blacklist, you’ll get farther along if you follow the rules and cooperate. If you are truly innocent of any deliberate wrongdoing (or if you made an honest mistake), let them know. The more open and direct you are with a listing database, the simpler it may be to have your IP address taken off the blacklist.
Keep this in mind:
Their priority is to reduce the spam on their email platform for their customers—their goal isn’t to prevent you from sending emails.
Spam is a serious problem. They don’t blacklist lightly. It’s their way of trying to identify and prevent real problems.
Blacklists are legal because they are designed to prevent fraud or other activity that disrupts normal business. We all need to accept that fact.
If you made a mistake and were blacklisted, don’t make the same mistake again. You likely won’t be forgiven a second time.
You might be able to resolve any blacklist issues online. If not, and the blacklisting is troublesome for you, consider contacting the list by phone and try to resolve the issue that way.
Related Articles
Check to see if your IP is blacklisted
What is a blacklist?
How do I report spam?
Frequently Asked Questions about how to bypass ip blocks
How do you bypass a school IP block?
How to Bypass a School FirewallUse a Proxy Site to Get Around URL Restrictions. … Use a VPN to Encrypt Your Traffic. … Type the IP Address of the Website. … Use Google Translate as an Impromptu Proxy Server. … Use a Smartphone Hotspot on Mobile Data. … You Could Have Your Personal Information Stolen. … You Could Get a Virus.More items…•Mar 11, 2020
What do I do if my IP is blocked?
If your IP address has been blacklisted and you want to investigate, you’ll need to visit the blacklist’s website and do a lookup on your IP address. Most blacklist databases will provide general listing reasons, but don’t list specific email addresses tied to blacklisted IP addresses.
