How to get through a firewall

Level of difficulty: Intermediate

We often find it very irritating when we are not able to access one of our favorite websites from a computer. This is because of the firewall that has been installed on the computer. The firewall blocks some of the websites which either are not secure or are considered useless. Such blocking of websites through firewall is generally done in companies, schools, universities and other such institutes. It is not very difficult to bypass these firewalls once you know the way to do it. There are different types of methods used to bypass different types of firewalls. You should be able to pick up the best suited method. However the steps below will help you bypass the most common type of firewall found in most of the organizations.

Materials Needed:
- You will require basic knowledge about the working of the computer and that of the Internet You will also need easy access to the machine from which you desire to bypass the firewall.
Step 1
The best way is to browse the blocked website by its IP address instead of the name. The IP address is the unique address that is assigned to every website for its identification. To browse the website by the means of an IP address you will need access to the command prompt. To reach the command prompt, click on START button on the left hand side corner of the screen. Go to ‘run’ option and fill in ‘cmd’ in the window that opens. You can also reach command prompt by going to the ‘Program Files’ option in the START menu and then to ‘Accessories’. In the menu that opens from accessories you will find the command prompt, click it.
Step 2
When in the command prompt; write ping name of the website and hit enter. For instance you want the IP address of yahoo.com then write ping yahoo.com. One can also use nslookup instead of ping in a similar way.
Step 3
Once you hit enter you will see a text message saying [00.00.00.00] is yahoo’s IP address. It will be a number having four parts. This number is the IP address you were looking for.
Step 4
Enter this IP address in the browser instead of the name of the website and you will get access to the website.
Step 5
In the rarest of the cases even the IP address fails to give you the access then try converting the numbers of the IP address into hexadecimal numbers and then enter these numbers into the browser.