School Proxy to unblock Facebook, Myspace, YouTube and other blocked sites

Are you tired of the “web page not Found” bummer every time you try to access Facebook, Myspace or YouTube while at School? Well, you’re not alone, millions of students like you are suffering the same fate. School and to a large extent employers have found ways to restrict internet access to social network sites either during School/work hours or in certain place such as IT labs or Libraries.

The most given reason for this form of censorship is to allow student focus on academics, but it is obvious most schools want to cut down on utility bills. Many schools employ Keyword filtering to filter bad words or simply block certain URL such as Facebook, YouTube Myspace and Netflix. To bypass school internet restrictions, you either need to subscribe to a VPN, smartDNS or better still use a non-censoring proxy server as explained in this article.

What is Proxy server?

Proxy server is more like a computer program that acts as an intermediary between your PC and the internet, getting network resources for client PCs. If you’re connected to a proxy server, the client PC sends its web requests to the proxy server which in turn gets the network resource from the internet and delivers the resource back to your PC.

All web requests through the proxy servers are cached or saved such that subsequent request are delivered to you directly from the cache. This is crucial in bypassing internet restrictions because to the web police, your PC is only seen to connect with the proxy server and not to the restricted sites.

Why do people use proxy servers?

• To share internet connection on LAN – A proxy server enables all computers on a Local Area Network to share the same internet connection, so many folks out there use to achieve such goals.
• To bypass internet restrictions – Most schools use filters to block access to social network sites such as Facebook, Myspace and YouTube during class hours (and of course, they’re blocked in break hours too). A proxy server circumvents this restriction by getting the blocked content for you.
• To increase browsing speeds – Since web requests are cached by the proxy servers, subsequent request are delivered from the cache which is faster than having to request the resource again form the web. So in most of the cases, proxies can help out providing better Internet speed.
• To by bypass geo-restriction and Location errors – Video streaming sites such as Netflix and Hulu (to name a couple) are restricted to united subscribers. Connecting to internet via us based proxy servers spoofs your device IP address, allowing you to unblock Netflix (the genuine, US version of it) even when you are outside of the United States.
• To browse the web anonymously – Since a proxy server accesses the internet on your behalf, your device IP address is totally hidden from online crooks and spymasters. This allows you to surf the web anonymous and minimize risks of cyber-attacks.

Which are the Best School Proxy Sites?

1. 1. HideMyAss Proxy – is by far the best web proxy to help you bypass school internet restrictions and access image hosted files. HideMyAss VPN is fast with a variety of anonymous features for anonymous web browsing.
   2. Proxify- is another brilliant web proxy which not only unblocks restricted websites but also filters cookies to enhance your web privacy. Proxify supports SSL and HTTPS encryption protocols and has minimum effects on your browsing speeds.
   3. Schoolproxy.info – is a free web proxy and an effective anonymous browsing tool. It fast, easy to use and supports HTTPs encryption ensuring the connection between your PC and Proxy server is always secure.
   4. School-proxy.org (No longer working) – is yet another wonderful school proxy website that masks your device IP address to help you unblock websites in school or at work. Again, a very simple and easy to use proxy with power customization to give you total control over your browsing experience. To put users at best possible comfort, it has got quick browsing links list option making it more easy for you to select your preferred website from the drop down list and get redirected to it without having to type the url by yourself.

1. Proxy.org – is a certified website blocker and a great anonymous tool for a school environment. It is easy to use and has minimum effect on your browsing speed.

Click here for more Proxy sites to unblock websites and surf on the Internet anonymously, not just when you’re at school.

How to configure your browsers to use Proxy server

First thing you need to setup a proxy server on your browser is to have a valid IP and port address handy with you, pick one for yourself free from here then. There are IPs available from almost all of the countries worldwide, choosing IP among the list just needs a little common sense of yours. Select the one with better speed and connection time, and of course you might want to take the type (http, https or socks) into consideration carefully. Got it? We’re good to go now.

Chrome Browser

• Go the Tools menu icon, click on setting and then show advance settings.
• Scroll down to Network section and click on Change proxy setting, an internet properties dialog box will appear.
• Click on LAN setting at the right bottom of the dialog box.
• At this point you can either select automatically detect setting Check box or select use a proxy server for your LAN checkbox for manual configuration.
• If you go for manual configuration, enter proxy server IP address and port Number and click ok.

 Firefox Browser

• Go to Tools Menu Icon and select
• Click on Advance Setting Icon select Network Tab.
• Under connection click on Settings, a connection setting dialog box will appear.
• Here you can either select “Auto-Detect Proxy setting for this network” or “Manual Proxy Configuration”
• If you choose “Manual Proxy Configuration” Enter the IP address for the HTTP proxy server.
• Enter the port number of the HTTP proxy server and click Ok.

 Internet Explorer.

• Go to Tools menu Icon, click Internet Options, under Connections tab, and then click LAN Settings.
• Under Proxy server, select the “Use a proxy server for your LAN” check box.
• Enter the IP address of the proxy server and the port number used for client connections.
• Here you also select the Bypass proxy server for local addresses check box to avoid using the proxy server for local connection. This may boost your browsing speed.
• Click OK to close the LAN Settings dialog box.
• Click OK again to close the Internet Options dialog box.

Opera Internet Browser.

• Go to the Tools Menu, select setting on drop down box.
• Scroll down, Select show advanced setting
• Under network section click on Change Proxy settings, an Internet properties dialog box will Appear,
• Under connection tab, click on LAN setting, a LAN setting dialogue box will appear.
• At this point, you can either select Automatically detect setting Check box under automatic configuration or select Use a Proxy server for your LAN under proxy server section.
• If you opt for manual configuration, enter IP address of the proxy server and the port number used for client connections. E.g. 80 or 8080
• To boost your browsing speed, select the Bypass proxy server for local addresses check box to avoid using the proxy server for local connections.
• Click ok to close the LAN setting dialog box
• Click ok to close Internet properties dialog box.

What if Proxy site is blocked by School’s IT administrators?

Chances are that your school IT administrator will block your newly found proxy site after a few successful attempts to circumvent school’s internet restriction. It’s likely the IT admin will block the common proxy ports 80, 1080, or 8080. Once a port is blocked, all traffic on the port is dropped rendering it useless to you. In this case you need to find a proxy server listening of uncommon ports such 8000 for the Junkbuster proxy or 6588 for the AnalogX proxy. Click here for a list on proxy servers listening on uncommon ports.

Better still, here is a simple trick that beats IT administrators hands down and allows you access blocked websites:

• Open the command Prompt on your PC. Just type cmd on your PC search bar, a cmd prompt will appear on search result, Click to launch it.
• Type “ping myspace.com”- assuming Myspace is the blocked website you want to access. Likewise, for Facebook type “ping facebook.com” and hit enter. An IP address of the website will appear.
• Copy/note the IP address and paste it on your browser search box and hit enter.
• Now you should be logged in to Myspace and Facebook (same goes for all of the websites you want to unblock). Cheers!

To sum it up; in this article we discussed what are proxies, why they important and a review of the best proxy sites you can use to unblock restricted websites in school. Note, we only listed the best web proxies we have tested so far and we welcome comments for other web proxies that may have worked well for you.

Also, we have discussed in details as how you can configure your browsers to use proxy servers. Here again, you might find slight variation depending on the version of your browser. We recommend updating your web browser to the latest version. You might want to get your hands on Netflix proxy, in case you’re specifically willing to stream Netflix over there. If you still have a problem using a school proxy, write to us on the comment section for a more personalized assistance.

Top/Featured Image: By Cavernosa – Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons