How to Bypass Firewalls And Access Blocked Websites at Work ~ MinShock!! Geek

How to Bypass Firewalls And Access Blocked Websites at Work

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It’s important every now and then to buck the system. If you let these security admins have their way, you’ll be blocked from 50 percent of the most useful areas of the Internet. Social networks and email are now valuable and important communication tools. However, in this simple guide, you’ll learn how to set up a simple proxy server on your own home PC that you can access from your workplace computer in order to use your home Internet access to browse the Internet from work. Don’t worry, this isn’t some high-level installation guide. I am a Windows geek, but I’m writing this guide for those of you who are not computer scientists, but would still like to figure out the easiest way to get into blocked websites at work. So, let’s get started. Step #1 – Determine Your IP Addresses This guide assumes that you have a broadband Internet connection, and that you’re sitting behind a router. Your first order of business is to write down your computer’s local IP address within your home network, and then your router’s IP on the Internet (don’t worry, it’s ridiculously easy).

On the computer that you want to use as your home proxy server, open a command prompt (Start -> Run -> type cmd) and type in “ipconfig.”
In my case I have two Ethernet cards, but in your case you’ll likely just see one “IP Address.” Write it down. next, open up a web browser and connect to your router. Step #2 – Configure Your Router For Port Forwarding Go into your router admin panel (for Linksys you type the URL 192.168.1.1). You can check the IP address of your router by clicking on the “status” in the admin panel, or you can just visit a site like http://www.whatismyip.com/. Please note that to access your router you might need a username and password for it. If you don’t know user/pass details for your router chances are they are on default. You can look up those on sites like http://www.routerpasswords.com/. Next, you’re going to “poke a hole” in your firewall by enabling port forwarding. For Linksys, this is typically found in the Gaming section under “Port Range Forward.” Just find “port forwarding” for your router and type in any nonstandard port number. In my case I just opened up ports 1085 to 1090 and forwarded it to the IP address that I just looked up using the “ipconfig” command. Save your changes and you’re halfway there! Step #3: Turn Your Home PC Into a Proxy Server Now that you’ve just told your router to tell all Internet requests on a specific port to go to your home PC, you’re going to configure your home PC to relay those HTTP requests out through your Internet account. You do this by installing a free proxy server. Download FreeProxy from and install it to your home PC.

Open up the FreeProxy software and click on the “port.” Set the Protocol to HTTP Proxy, and make the port one that you specified in the router. When you click done, you are ready to start using your new proxy. However, every geek reading this is twitching and their faces are all turning red. Why? Well, you’ve just opened up a virtually unprotected (albeit non-standard) port to the open Internet, and you’re forwarding all HTTP requests through your own Internet connection. That’s a major no-no. While you might hate security weenies, when you’re talking about your home PC, a little security is a good thing. Enabling HTTP authentication is a good idea, as is the FreeProxy authentication option. With these settings you can configure the proxy to authenticate with your Windows logon id/password, or you can set one within the FreeProxy software itself. Either option is definitely a good idea. Step #4 – Start Your Proxy Service and Bypass Your School Filters When you’re happy with all of the FreeProxy settings and security, all you have to do is start up the service and you’re good to go. However, in my case, to prove that the proxy is working properly, I enabled the logging feature.
Don’t enable logging normally, because it will consume disk space. However, it’s a great way to see how well the proxy is working (and whether or not your security is working properly). When you’re ready, just click the “stop/start” option on the main screen. Step #5 – Configure the Client Browser To test out your new proxy server, go to a local library (tip: locate all nearby libraries with public library finder), open up a browser and select options and connections. Configure your LAN connection settings to use a proxy server.
Select manual proxy configuration, and make sure to put the IP address of your router into the “HTTP Proxy” field, and the port you configured into the “Port” field. Now when you use the Internet, you’ll notice that it’s slower. Images on pages will take a bit longer to load, as the data travels through your home PC, and then to your work PC where you’re browsing the net. Having a slow connection is a small price to pay for being able to access any web page that you want through your own personal proxy that the work firewall won’t know to block. After browsing the net for a while through my own private proxy server, I went to the PC and checked the logs. Sure enough, it had logged every site that I’d visited while connected through the server. FreeProxy works quickly and easily, and you’ll have access to a private Internet connection from work.
Please let us know if any problem arises by dropping your comments at Softek IT Consult. Any questions or suggestions are always welcome.

Doc By; TitusMukisa
Softek Systems™