Finding ways to unblock restricted websites is one of my favourite hobbies. In the past I shared few tricks that unblock restricted web sites, Instant Messengers and tricks specific to accessing YouTube and Orkut.

As users learn new tricks to unblock the web sites, network administrators are also tightening all the loop holes in the security systems. Few networking administrators are going to extent of blocking all the web URLs which contains the words like YouTube, Facebook, Orkut, etc. If such strict measures are placed to sensor web at your organisation then you might not be even able to read http://www.techdreams.org/2007/11/access-blocked-youtube-at-office-school.html as the URL contains the word YouTube.

If you organisation has such strict web sensor policies and none of the our previous tricks work, here a new set of tricks.

Trick 1: Access the web sites using IP address

Instead of entering the address of your favourite website in the browser location bar, enter IP address address of the site. For example access YouTube by entering the IP address http://208.65.153.238/ instead of entering http://youtube.com in the URL bar.

To identify IP address of a web site you can use the simple MS Dos command ping or this free online service.



Trick 2:Access the web sites using OperaMini Web Browser Simulator

Use Opera Mini Browser Online Demo application to access favourite web sites in a small screen window. Opera Mini is a popular web browser for mobile phones. It allows users to work with live demo of Opera Mini that functions exactly like it would when installed on a handset.

Point your browser to http://www.operamini.com/demo/ and start accessing blocked websites.



Tip: Access mobile version of the sites while browsing through Opera Mini browser for better experience. Here are the few mobile versions of famous social networking sites

* My Space: http://m.myspace.com/xhtml/login.wap
* Facebook: http://m.facebook.com/
* Orkut: http://m.orkut.com



Disclaimer: Use these tips and tricks at you own risk. Your organisations may consider accessing blocked web sites and messengers as breach of security policies and guidelines that may result in any inconvenience.