How To Get Around Internet Censors Away From Home
Are you facing problem visiting a website because your Government blocks or it the website is available only to the visitors from a particular country? Read this article to know more about how you can bypass such censors when you are away from home and are facing such restrictions.
Right across the planet, the internet is censored in various different ways. Some are naturally more stringent than others, depending on the types of filters a country or service provider has in place.
While the likes of the United States and the UK are relatively relaxed, you won't find a great deal of excitement in the likes of Dubai and North Korea. You'll be lucky even to have access to the majority of the internet.
All over the world though, you will be faced with geoblocking, essentially preventing you from accessing the content you're blessed with every day back home. This means no on-demand services from the likes of Fox or NBC, and Netflix will be strictly limited to the country you're currently in. That is not ideal, particularly if you're faced with long delays at the airport or stuck inside a hotel room.
However, there are ways around this to give you the complete package no matter where you are in the world. Although some countries are catching on to these methods, like China interfering with VPN connections, many ways out there are still quite reliable.
The most common, and the most reliable way is through a VPN, or a Virtual Private Network.
Costing as little as a few dollars per month, a VPN effectively diverts all the outgoing traffic from your device and sends it through the VPN server. If you are traveling overseas and want to relax at the hotel with a Netflix movie, you could connect to a VPN server back in the United States and gain access to the same Netflix account you use back home.
What the VPN does is create a tunnel for all the data flowing to and from your computer to travel through. It camouflages you from the network you're connected to and allows you to access content from all over the world privately and securely. You are virtually hidden, and service providers cannot determine your location.
A VPN also allows you to edit and change your device's IP address (Internet Protocol address). Each device that connects to a network has a series of numbers attached to it which is the IP address. Those numbers reveal your location when the device is connected to the network. This allows for the service provider to know where to send the required data in order for the internet to load.
When a geoblock is in place, the ISP (Internet Service Provider) will have two pools – one is for IP address in the required location to access the content. The other pool is for the IP address outside of the necessary location and will be denied access. Once the ISP knows your area, your IP address will fit into either of these pools, resulting in either granted or denied access to the requested content.
Most IP addresses will allow you to operate from almost 100 different countries, so whether you're looking to dupe geoblocks in Thailand, Europe or South America, there are ways around it.
What a VPN will also provide is be a secure method to access torrenting sites. If you're used to accessing content this way, a VPN is undoubtedly a safer way of doing so and working around copyright laws.
That's due to what a VPN will do. As well as being able to edit your IP settings, you will also have your data encrypted and diverted through a second server, making your own IP almost impossible to track. This means that it also gets around the issue of seeding, which can be something that gets you in trouble. Because you're using a VPN, connecting via a proxy will keep your activity hidden, meaning you won't start seeding content via P2P.
The tunnel a VPN creates is highly secure and encrypted, masking your online activity from anyone other than yourself. Many companies will implement a VPN for remote workers to access the company network. Some customers enjoy this security feature when they travel and have to use public networks. Other people will use it to simply hide from the government.
Imagine it this way – you're walking down the sidewalk of a major street downtown. Everyone driving by can see where you are going and what you are holding. If you have something valuable on you that you don't want anyone to see, you are left vulnerable. So, instead, you take the tunnel that travels below the sidewalk, hiding you from all the outside traffic. Now the outside world can no longer see where you are going and what you are holding. You can get to your destination safely without any interference from unwanted eyes.
A VPN will work similarly. The purpose is to mask your activity so that no one can see or access it. This also prevents anyone from attempting to hack into your device and steal personal and valuable information.
There are other methods to bypass internet censorship and geoblocks. However, they do not provide the same level of encryption and security that a VPN does.
A proxy site is a fairly simple way to access content on the internet, but it won't work for services that require a login (ex. Netflix). You take the website you want access to and plug it into the proxy. The service provider will then see information coming from the proxy and will think you are somewhere else, granting you access to the content. However, don't expect to get a secure and encrypted connection that a VPN would provide.
If you only want to access block websites, you could use a Tor. It lets you anonymously browse the internet by rerouting your web browsing to an encrypted connection. Again, though, it does not provide the same type of security as a VPN and should not be used for any sensitive data.
They're generally simple steps; you'll find hundreds of VPNs on the market at a relatively low cost. If you travel regularly and enjoy catching up on shows from back home, it's well worth investing in one as they certainly will keep you safer as well as open up the internet to almost any content you please.
