Looking at the experiences of one of my friends – the network administrator – I don’t think I’d ever want to be one. Personally, I think this job would continuously put me in a difficult situation. On one side, I would want to always be on good terms with everybody that I worked with. But on the other side, I would have to preserve the company’s internet bandwidth.

The Internet is one of the favorite places to slack off from work. And most of the time people “intentionally” get confused on the difference between “slacking” and “working”, hence abusing the free net connection provided by the office/school/whatever.

So, to increase the productivity of everybody, the network admin is asked to block those major slacker-maker websites (social networking, chat, photo/video sharing, etc.). And since nobody has the guts to point his/her finger to the boss, the network admin will definitely play the role as the bad guy.

Unlock The Block

The problem is, there are always some ‘good’ sites that also get blocked in the process. And it’s very annoying if you really do want to work but unable to access the necessary places.

Assuming that you are going to use it for a good cause, there are many solutions available on how to get past blocked sites, and we’ve discussed some of them here, here, here and here. But you can’t get too many alternatives, can you?

This article will show you another way how to get past blocked sites. You’ll need your own domain hosted in a PHP-friendly hosting service and a script called PHProxy.

You can try to use a free web host for this purpose. The basic rule of thumb is, if the host can handle WordPress, it can easily handle PHProxy. However, not all free hosting providers (are willing to) support this script.

How to Get Past Blocked Sites

After you download PHProxy, unzip it, then upload these three files: index.php, index.inc.php, and style.css to a directory in your site. You can use any existing directory in your site, but it’s preferable to create a new one.

To upload files or create a directory, you can use any FTP client or use the online “File Manager” provided by your host. This is usually accessible via cPanel (and may have a different appearance depending on what kind of cPanel is used).

Inside the File Manager, choose “New dir”

And then create a new directory by writing down the desired directory’s name and click the checkmark.

Then choose the newly made directory to open it, and click the “Upload” button.

Browse for the three files and add to the upload list. Click the green checkmark to upload them.

And you are done.

Note: In some cases, you may have to create the new directory inside the “/htdocs” directory.

Using PHProxy

Using PHproxy to access blocked sites is very easy. All you’ve got to do is point your browser to: http://yourdomainname/the-new-directory-name/

If nothing goes wrong during the installation (read:uploading process), then you’ll see the following PHProxy display.

Just put the address of the blocked site in the “Web Address” field and click “Go“.

You can share the access to your friends if you want to, but it’s better if you just show them how to build one themselves. Because the more users there are, the more likely it’s being discovered by the admin.

To close, let me quote the disclaimer by the script’s author:

Since this script basically bypasses restrictions that were imposed on you, using it might be illegal in your country, school, office, or whatever. Even your host might not allow you to run it. Use it at your own risk. I will not be responsible for any damages done or any harm that might result from using this script.

Simply put, use the method at your own risk.

Again, PHProxy can be downloaded for free here. And there’s another similar script that you can try: CGIProxy.

Do you know other free and easy methods how to get past blocked sites?  Please share using the comments below.

Image credit: Joshua Rappeneker and Llima