Access Everything that is Blocked at Work

Some tips and tricks to pass the ‘Access Denied’ barrier at school, college or work.

There are various techniques you can use to access your personal web-based email, Facebook, Orkut, Twitter or instant chat clients at work. Read our guide.

Google Talk 


- To access Google Talk at work, one thing you could do is (shown below) add the following Google Talk gadget client URL - http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/client - to your Firefox bookmarks and select the option to load it in the sidebar.


- Try an online instant messaging service like IMO, Ebuddy, KoolIM1, KoolIM2 or Meebo to access Google Talk when provided with net access. Chances are these websites may have not been blocked in your office.

- You can access Google Talk in iGoogle. On your left sidebar in the iGoogle page, the Chat section is your Google Talk. iGoogle is basically a Google startpage you can use as a portal.

- Try the KoolIM extension in Firefox. Type this URL - http://www.koolim.com/koolimsidebar.xpi – in your address bar. An option to install the add-on will pop up. Install it. Please note that this extension doesn’t work the latest version of Firefox.

- Yoono Firefox add-on is another tool you can install on the web browser to instantly access Google Talk.

- Google Desktop has a gadget for Google Talk. Try installing Google Desktop and access Google Talk within it.

GMail


- To access GMail when you dont have access, simply try the mobile version http://m.gmail.com.

- Use https –> https://gmail.com, https://mail.google.com

- iGoogle has a specific GMail gadget from which you can access GMail.

- Register on Netvibes reader to access GMail as a gadget. You can check new email from Netvibes.

- There is a paid service available to use GMail. It’s called GMail From Work. If you are willing to pay money to access GMail at work, you could try this out.

- Again, like Google Talk, there is also an add-on gadget for GMail in Google Desktop.

- Access it from a mobile web simulator, like Opera.

Yahoo Messenger


- Try online IM services like Meebo or IMO. Refer the similar point above in ways to access Google Talk.

- Yoono Firefox Add-on allows access to Yahoo Messenger.

- Try Yahoo’s online messenger service to use it if it’s unblocked.

Facebook


- There are various stand-alone Facebook applications that are available, which you can probably download at work if allowed. These are independent, desktop apps that one can use to access it – like the Facebook AIR app. Download it now.

- You can access Facebook through Firefox add-on Yoono.

- To access Facebook chat, you can try web-based messengers like IMO.

- Try Facebook Mobile in your web browser to access Facebook at work.

- Facebook’s new Lite version might still be unblocked at work or school, considering that it’s newly released.

- Access it from a mobile simulator, like Opera.

Orkut


- Try Orkut India’s website to access the social network – http://orkut.co.in. Chances are this one’s not blocked by your admin folks.

- Like Facebook Mobile, you can access Orkut on your office PC at Orkut Mobile.

- There is another trick to get to Orkut. Try http://images.orkut.com. Now this one actually leads you to your Orkut homepage, provided you are logged in to your Google account.

- Access it from a mobile simulator, like Opera.

Twitter


- Users of Mozilla Firefox web browser can try various Twitter add-ons. (TwitterBar, Echofon, Yoono)

- Internet Explorer 8 users can try the Cloudberry Twitter Plugin. This one also works with Firefox.

- You can tweet from your office email address. Simply, head to TwitterMail and obtain an email you can send your tweets to and start using it right away.

- You can tweet from Gmail by using the Twitter gadget. Head to Google Labs features in GMail, enable the ‘Add Gadgets’ feature and simply add this URL - http://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml – to find the Twitter gadget added to your GMail account. For Twitter from GMail, you would have to obviously have access to GMail first.
 
- To tweet from Microsoft Outlook, you can get the Twitter Outlook Plugin.

- You can tweet from this website to make it look like your actually working on a spreadsheet, but actually tweeting.

- Use Google Desktop’s Twitter gadget. 

Other Blocked Websites

- Access the website through a proxy server. Proxies basically allow you indirect access to a network with your identity made unknown. Check out this list of proxies. All you have to do is type the URL of the website you want to access to use proxies.

- Web2Mail is a great service that sends you web pages by email. Learn more here.

- Type the IP address (computer-understandable) of the website instead of URL. An example of an IP address is 74.125.79.85 (Orkut’s IP address). To obtain the IP address of a blocked website you are trying to access, visit here or here. Type in the URL and the service will fetch you the IP address.


- Search the website in Google. And find Google’s cached version of the website. Click it to access a stored version of the website (usually the span of a few days). See image above.

- You can always read a website’s content by accessing it’s RSS feed address. Learn more in our post on Google Reader.

- Try the Firefox add-on for proxy management – FoxyProxy.

- Add https (Secure HTTP) ahead of the URL instead of http and see if the website can be accessed. 

- A really cool way of accessing almost any website online (including above mentioned ones like Facebook, Orkut or GMail) is to use a mobile simulator. Opera’s famous mobile web browser can be used to access any website. You can also try the DotMobi mobile emulator. Just head to these links and start using any website, from a mobile phone view of course.

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