Website restrictions and censoring deprive users of gaining access to information. This annoying experience eventually compels users to look for ways to unblock websites at all costs.
Many organizations, schools, and companies often block websites for various reasons (discussed later in this article). Likewise, countries frequently block useful websites due to political issues, cultural values, and other reasons. These blocked sites can range from social media platforms and gaming sites to entertainment, sports, and lots more.
While some website blocks are justified, others can be unjust. These restrictions may even stop you from accessing certain information when needed.
Such bans are quite repressive to the public concerning their internet freedom.
So, look no further if you want to unblock blocked sites and access in your school, business area, work or home, or abroad. This article will guide you on how to get around geo-restrictions to access your desired content. As far as you don’t live in the more repressive regions like China, you can easily apply the methods explained here to enjoy unrestricted browsing.
How to unblock websites anywhere – Quick guide
Fortunately, you can now use different methods to access blocked sites anywhere. However, using a VPN is the most effective method for it among all others. So, let’s take a quick look at how to unblock sites on your device with a VPN.
- Subscribe to a reliable VPN provider. Ideally, you should register with a service that offers many locations, such as NordVPN.
- Set up the VPN app on your device. You can easily find the app compatible with your device OS from the service provider’s website. After that, you can install it within minutes.
- Connect to an appropriate server. If you know the country where your desired website is available, connect to a VPN server from that region.
- Visit your intended website to unblock. You should now find it completely accessible on your device.
How does website blocking work?
Website restrictions typically work in two ways. However, in both methods, the action revolves around your IP address.
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is your online identity. It helps identify your PC on the internet and other information about your device. Also, the same IP address hints at your location – your country, city, and sometimes, your exact geo coordinates.
Through this data, the website owners, the institutions, or the governments regulate what you can or cannot access.
When a website admin does not want users from a specific region to view its content, it blocks all the IP addresses from that region. As a result, when you try to access such a website, you get errors. (This is what services like Netflix do to regulate their content libraries.)
In such cases, the blocking isn’t done by your institution or the government but by the website itself. To convince such a website to unblock you, you need to change your IP location to one it allows.
The other content-blocking method works from the receivers’ end – your school, workplace, or your ISP/government.
When the authorities don’t want the users on their network to access the particular website(s), they block those sites. Hence, when you try to access a blocked website, you fail. But, at the same time, your network admins get to know about it.
The problem isn’t at the website owners’ end but on your network. If you connect to another network, you may probably evade such restrictions.
However, when it’s about a restriction from your government, changing networks locally won’t help. That’s because the ISPs of your country apply such bans. So, you seemingly need to connect to a network in another country to unblock websites.
Types of website restriction
While content restrictions may happen at any given time on any network, they usually fall in one of the following categories. You can easily unblock websites anywhere if you understand these content-restriction categories well.