While surfing the Internet, you may encounter a situation where you can not access some online content or websites, which is annoying. Many times you cannot access your favorite websites because of some network issues or restrictions by your company, college, country, or workplace.

However, there are multiple ways that can help you to access restricted sites and online content. Here, we have listed some of the popular methods to access blocked websites. Read more…

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Method 1: Unblock Websites URL using a VPN

Here are the steps to access restricted sites like Netflix using ExpressVPN:

Step 1) Go to ExpressVPN’s Website. Press “Try ExpressVPN Risk Free” Button, which takes you to the subscription page.

Step 2) ExpreeVPN offers three plans: a) 1 month, b) 6 months, and c) 12 months. Chose a plan and pay

Note: Initially, a charge will be made, but you will be able to claim a refund within 30 days with their 30-day money-back guarantee. You can reduce your risk by choosing the 1 Month Plan only. To reduce the risk further, you can enter a one-time-use virtual credit card. Chose to pay via Bitcoin for maximized anonymity.

Step 3) The ExpressVPN Free Trial has begun.

Copy the Activation Code

Step 4) Download ExpressVPN on your computer.

Open the app, and you’ll enter the activation code you had just copied. That’s it! Now the ExpressVPN trial will be working on your computer, and you will be able to connect and use it for gaming, streaming, protecting your identity, and more.

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Method 2: Unblock websites using Tor

Tor is IP blocker software that uses the onion routing method to encapsulate in encryption layers. It is a special kind of IP blocker software that provides individuals the ability to surf the Internet anonymously.

Tor browser can easily run on your computer, which helps to keep you safe on the Internet. It also protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network. It stops other people from accessing your Internet connection and prevents people from knowing about your physical location.

Tor directs Internet traffic consisting of more than seven thousand relays. This tool helps you to change IP address location and also stops anyone from conducting traffic analysis or network surveillance. Therefore, you can easily bypass blocked sites.

Features:

No-logging policy: Yes
Split tunneling: No
Torrenting: Yes
IP Addresses: Static
Free Trial: Unlimited
Supported Platforms: Windows, macOS X, Linux, Android

Pros

It is accessible universally.
This browser lets you bypass blocked sites.
It is open source. Therefore, easy to inspect code.
It allows you to surf anonymously with no hassle.
It better protects your privacy using three servers: Entering, middle, and at the end.

Cons

Takes time to load the homepage.
It blocks some web services.
This IP blocker software reduces bandwidth speed.

Link: https://www.torproject.org/download/

Method 3: Using a Proxy

Proxy is a server application that bypasses blocked sites using a different IP address. A proxy acts as an intermediary between clients sending requests and servers responding. The primary use of a proxy is to maintain privacy and encapsulation between multiple interactive systems. However, it may slow down your connection, and it does not encrypt your activity.

Here are the three types of proxy servers.

SOCKS proxy: SOCKS is an Internet protocol that routes your Internet traffic through a third-party server via TCP (Transmission Control Protocol). It assigns you a new IP address so that the web host cannot find your physical location.
HTTP/S proxy: HTTP/S proxy comes with extensions for browsers like Chrome or Firefox. It helps you to hide your IP address when using a browser, but other programs can still use a direct connection. This proxy can hide your IP but does not encrypt your connection.
SSH proxy: SSH proxy or SSH tunnel routes your Internet connection through a server using a secure shell protocol. It is not fast. Therefore, some websites do not work in a proper way. This proxy allows you to transmit data through a secure SSH protocol between multiple devices over the Internet.

Method 4: Using VPN browser extensions

If you want to use blocked websites in companies and colleges like Twitter, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, etc., the website-based proxy might not be enough. You need to try VPN browser extensions to connect web browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari to a server. Virtual Private Networks encrypt all of your data going from your browser and routes through a server. These plugins help you to hide your IP address and location.

Here are the steps to use NordVPN browser extension to use blocked sites:

Step 1) Open the Chrome browser, go to the web store and find: NordVPN extension

Step 2) Add the extension and sign in to NordVPN.

Click on the “Log In with Nord Account” button.

Step 3) Perform the following steps:

Enter email address
Click on the “Continue” button

Step 4) Perform the following steps:

Enter password
Click on the “Log In” button

Step 5) Connecting to the United States:

Click on “Search for a specific country”

Step 6) Write United States as country and press enter.

You are now connected to one of the servers available in US.

Step 7) Login to your Netflix account, and you will be able to watch TV shows and movies available in USA.

Method 5: Using Smart DNS

A smart DNS is a tool that provides access to restricted sites. It requires you to change the address of the Internet either manually or with the help of third-party programs. This way, the DNS service will think that it has access to restricted online content you like to view.

Method 6: Change your DNS Server

Cloudflare and Google both give you free DNS service. It offers a custom Domain Name System server that helps you bypass restrictions set by your ISP, company, college, etc. DNS servers are also faster compared to your Iocal Internet Service Provider.

Method 7: Use Google Translate

Google Translate is the last option that enables you to watch blocked websites like YouTube. All you need to do is to search for the videos you like in a different language. If you do not speak any other languages, you can simply utilize Google Translate to get the explanation of the search query in German, Portuguese, French, etc.

The search engine here will show you the foreign language results. You have to choose to view the site in your language by clicking on “Translate this page”. This way, your computer will load links only from Google Translate. Therefore, you will be able to bypass the restrictions of YouTube imposed by your employer or school.

Method 8: Use an IP address instead of a URL

There are chances that your institution blocks a particular URL instead of IPs. In this case, you can unblock the site by using its IP address.

Here is a method that helps you to find IP address in a Windows computer:

Step 1) Type “cmd” into the start menu and press enter. This will open the command prompt.

Step 2) Write “ping” and the name of the website, for example, reddit.com.

Step 3) Press enter and you will see the IP address of the website.

You need to keep in mind that these steps may differ according to the type of operating system. For Linux OS, you need to type the command dig reddit.com into the command line. While for Mac, you have to use Traceroute option. Once you got the IP address, simply copy and paste the IP address in your browser, and you will be able to access that particular site.

Method 9: Use a URL Shortener

URL shortner is another method to get around blocked sites. You can use services like is.gd, TinyURL, and Bitly to short the URL of a website. It helps you to unblock websites without using proxy, Tor, or VPN.

Here are steps to short URLs using Bitly:

Step 1) Visit https://bitly.com/ in your web browser.

Step 2) Click on the “Log in” button to sign in.

Step 3) Log in to Bitly:

Enter email address
Enter password
Click on the “Log in” button

Step 4) Click on the “CREATE” button to make your URL shorter.

Step 5) Enter the long URL, and then Bitly will automatically shorten the website name.

Step 6) The following screen will be displayed with a short URL.

Step 7) Copy the shortened URL and paste it into a web browser to access the blocked website.

Method 10: Use the Google cache

Google cache keeps a local copy of your commonly visited websites to load the page faster when you visit it. If your live version of a website is blocked, then you can easily access the cached version of the website.

To do this, perform the following steps:

Step 1) Go to Google and type the website you want to access

Step 2) Click on the arrow available on the right side of the website.

Step 3) Select “cached” and you will be able to view the website without any hassle.

Method 11: Use online screenshot generating applications

Screenshot generating applications can capture full page snapshots of web pages you want to access. Some useful websites to get screenshots of restricted sites are Screen Guru, and Screenshot Guru.

Method 12: Use web page to PDF generating tools

There are numerous services that can be used to generate PDF files for any web page. It is also preferable that you use any good applications like HTML to PDF, PDFCrowd, or PDFmyURL to generate the PDF of a restricted web page. It enables you to copy text or extract images from PDFs.

FAQ:

Following are the reasons for the unavailability of particular websites:

Government laws or restrictions on the rights of broadcasting: Some government laws or restrictions limit the citizens to access particular websites.
Usage laws: Licensing, copyright, trademark, and other usage laws that prohibit the sites to be shown outside a particular region.
Restrictions placed by content uploader: The website owner has not made the content accessible in your region.
Technical issues: Many times, you might not be able to access some sites because of technical issues.

Yes, it is legal to unblock websites by changing the IP address. US people change their Internet Protocol regularly when they face a direct attack on online privacy. If you use IP to impersonate any person or business, then you might be in legal trouble. Sometimes, opening a website that is banned for you could also create a serious problem.

Split tunneling in a Virtual Private Network enables you to route your application or device traffic through an encrypted VPN. It is helpful to connect your ideal location and enjoy secure access to sensitive data over the Internet.

No-log VPNs are applications that do not exchange your personal or sensitive information using the network. These software enables you to connect your devices in a secure way over the Internet. These type of VPNs does not store your data. Therefore these applications are reliable to use.

Yes. VPN can slow down your Internet speed. In some cases, it reduces speed by 50%. However, it does not shut down your Internet connection.

If proxies don’t work when trying to view blocked websites, then you can try Google Translate or Tor to access blocked sites.

You can access blocked websites on your Android and iPhone using VPNs like ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and CyberGhost. It is also good that you try the Tor browser to open blocked sites on your smartphone.

There are many ways to get around blocked sites on Chrome:

The popular and easiest one is to unblock the website from the restricted site settings in Google Chrome.

Perform the following steps to view the blocked site:

Step 1) Click on the three dots given on the upper right corner of the Chrome browser

Step 2) Click on “settings”

Step 3) Click on the “Advanced” option

Step 4) Click on “open proxy settings”

Step 5) Select “Restricted sites” and click “Sites”

Step 6) Select the website you would like to access and click “OK” to finish the settings.

Step 7) Restart Chrome browser and re-visit the website you want to access

You can use the Tor browser. It enables you to view blocked websites without using add-ons like Chrome extensions.