This document discusses why websites may be blocked and provides various methods for bypassing blocks. Websites can be blocked by governments for political or economic reasons, businesses may restrict access for employees, and parental controls limit access for certain age groups. Common blocking methods include geoblocking based on IP address location and filtering specific URLs or domains. The document then describes several techniques for circumventing blocks, such as using a VPN to connect to a server in another location, proxies, IP addresses instead of URLs, browser extensions, alternative DNS servers, archival sites, RSS feeds, anonymity browsers like TOR, and portable browsers on external drives.

1. Why Do Websites Get Blocked
and How to Bypass it

2. Censorship appears to be increasingly tough not only in countries, which we
traditionally view as authoritarian (Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, etc.) but
in Western ones as well. It is not uncommon anymore for users from around
the globe to find themselves unable to access their favorite resources.
This happens because:
• some governments do not want citizens to access resources from some
countries for political and/or economic reasons. For example — The Great
Firewall of China;
• some businesses restrict Internet use for employees to make them
concentrate on work;
• there are parental control services that limit access for some age groups.
However, there are always ways around any obstacle. This post focuses on
the most common, effective, and legal means of how to get access to
blocked websites.

3. The access to a website got restricted
If you realize you cannot visit your favorite website anymore, please, control your
feelings and try to find out what exactly is wrong.
• First, address an uptime monitoring service and check if the website is down or
up.
• If it is down, it may be dealing with technical issues, and it will get back on its feet
in a couple of days.
• If the service is not detecting a downtime, most likely, the website administration
or your government/company has just limited access to it.
• Ask your friends, colleagues, and associates: if they cannot access the websites,
and users outside of your organization can, this has to be due to corporate
control.
• If you have friends from different countries, ask them too. If users who live in
your country cannot open it, and users from abroad can, most likely, it is blocked
by your home country’s or host country’s government.

4. How and why websites are being blocked
Geoblocking
This is one of the biggest threats to the freedom of the Internet, as blocking users
from certain countries is increasingly common.
It is an approach used to limit access to Internet content based on users’
geographic location.
Governments, companies, and websites apply geolocation techniques, which help
them define a user’s location by IP-address, connection delay, etc.
Governments use geoblocking for political and economic purposes, as they restrict
various companies, media groups, social organizations, etc. that are subject to
political and economic sanctions. For example, governments may blacklist retailers
from given countries and limit the sale of their products in their countries to
comply with their protectionist policies.
Private companies and individuals may resort to geoblocking too. They do it for
various reasons. The most common are compliance with economic sanctions for
not wanting to fall under restrictions themselves.

5. How to view blocked websites
There are quite a bunch of methods that can help you circumvent all
these barriers.

6. Use VPN services
VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows you to connect to a server located in any part of the world on a peer-to-peer
basis and bypass the central server. As you connect to a server outside of your home country, your IP-address will
be located outside of it too. VPNs encrypt data flow and allow users to build channels, which cannot be decoded
by a third party. There are lots of affordable VPN services online, through which you can connect to a server
located half the world away from you. VPN is one of the safest ways around restrictions.

7. Become Anonymous: run your browser through a proxy.
Connecting to a proxy is another way to circumvent restrictions. A
proxy service will hide the restricted website from your ISP and will not
let they track your activity. However, proxies do not code traffic as
VPNs do, so they are less safe.

8. Use IP instead of URL
If you have discovered that a website is blocked, you can try accessing it
through its IP, because the blockers could have hidden the URL. It is possible
to get the IP by pinging it using a free PING tool or in Command Prompt. Run
the program, type in the web site's URL, hit Enter, copy-paste the IP-address
into the browser’s address bar and select the needed site from the list.
Please, note that this method won’t work if the blockers have chosen to hide
the IP-address too.

9. Choose between proxies in your browser
Some organizations use more than one proxy. As restrictions are directed via
particular proxies, there may be ones, through which the blocked website
can still be available. Use the Connection Settings option in your browser and
switch to another proxy, which is likely to be unrestricted.

10. Use browser extensions
If you use dynamic websites regularly, and your organization or
government is blocking them, they still can be accessed via browser
extensions like UltraSurf, ProxMate, Hola, etc.

11. Replace your DNS Server
Now it is possible to switch between DNS servers and have a safer and
more reliable connection and bypass censorship. You can address
GoogleDNS and/or OpenDNS, as well as the just-launched 1.1.1.1 DNS,
which is believed to be the most advanced and privacy-oriented one.

12. Use Wayback Machine
Realizing that your favorite site is no longer accessible is frustrating.
However, Wayback Machine has chosen an interesting strategy. It
copies different past versions of websites and presents them to the
audience. Users can choose any available past version of a favorite
website, view videos, and listen to audio, which would not be available
otherwise.

13. Use RSS feed
RSS (‘really simple syndication’ or ‘rich site summary,’ whatever you
like!) feed is a unique solution, which helps you to grab content from
blocked sites and broadcast them to a reader. You can use the website’s
feed or, if it is not there, create your own, and view all types of content
that come in from the source in a simple text format.

14. Use IP Anonymizer (i.e., TOR)
Tor, “The Onion Router,” gets its nickname from the layered encryption
pattern, which it uses when transferring data. It is a kind of browser,
which ensures safe encryption and anonymity. With this browser at
hand, users can access blocked websites and media resources without
being tracked by any surveillance.

15. Use portable FireFox
Some organizations go pretty far in restricting employees’/students’
access to websites and may forbid them to use web browser
extensions. A good way out is installing a browser on a USB drive and
synchronizing it with an unblock proxy.

16. Final Words
As follows from the above, there are a variety of ways to access blocked
websites, and they are all quite so available. However, each one of
them is effective in its own way, and what is suitable for some users
may be less suitable for others. Nonetheless, the scope of options is
pretty wide so that any user can choose the most appropriate one.
Source: Why Do Websites Get Blocked and How to Bypass it