How do I unblock sites on my computer?

[Pauline D]

My thoughtless little brother blocked all of my favorite sites from my computer like Facebook and Youtube. I already fixed the cookie settings and unrestricted these sites from my security settings, but it still doesn't work. What else can I do? Helpppppp

[Shaun]

Reset IE settings
To do this, go to tools - internet options, in internet explorer.
select security tab, and click reset all zones to default level.
then, select privacy tab, under settings, click default.
Or you can just click on advanced tab, and under reset internet explorer settings, click reset.

[Jacob]

It depends on how your brother blocked the sites. Did he block your websites at the browser level, computer level, or network level? Each would have different solutions. I'll run through them quickly for you! (All of this is assuming you are using a Microsoft OS)

Browser Level) Try accessing one of the blocked websites through another browser. A browser is the medium by which you access those websites. (E.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Crome, Opera...etc.) If you are using Internet Explorer, try downloading and installing one of these other browsers. They will import your favorites from your main browser, if that works....you know he's blocked you on the browser level.

No luck? Next level!

Computer Level) This is a bit more difficult to test for however, we can give it a shot. Do the following....

Start -> Run ->

At the dialog box, type 'cmd', without the ''. After you should see a command prompt window open. Here type the following....

ping http://www.youtube.com

Make sure you type it just like that. This is going to ping youtube and bypass the browser level. After you should get something like this....

x packets transmitted, x packets received, x% packet loss

If the packet loss is 100%, then it's at the computer level. If not, and you get 0% packet loss, then refer to the browser level check.

A site can be blocked a few ways on the computer level. One of the easiest is by altering the default DNS, and blocking the wanted domains through a service like OpenDNS. The other method is through a file called the "hosts" file. We'll check both.

1) The Hosts File - Click Start -> My Computer -> C Drive -> system32 -> drivers -> etc -> hosts

Next, you'll want to open this file using notepad, or a similar text editor. (Not Microsoft Word!!!) If within this file you see something like this, he's blocked it here.....

127.0.0.1 youtube.com
127.0.0.1 http://www.youtube.com
127.0.0.1 otherblockeddomain.com

If you delete those lines, and re-save the file, the websites will be able to be accessed again. The "127.0.0.1", is your computers localhost, so he just pointed those sites to your local computer....thereby, blocking access to them.

2. DNS - Start -> Control Panel -> Network & Internet Connections -> Network Connections ....

Right click on "Local Area Connection", and click "Properties". After this you want to go to select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)", after selecting it so it's highlighted, then click "Properties". After on that page, see the DNS section. Has it been manually changed, or is it using the default "Obtain DNS Automatically".

If custom DNS has been entered, change the option to "Optain DNS Automatically". Otherwise, proceed to network level.

Network Level) If he blocked it this way, he did so through the router or custom DNS. The easiest method to fix this is to change the DNS server. So see the previous paragraph, and use the following DNS instead.

208.67.220.220
208.67.222.222

(The provided DNS servers are OpenDNS, which should bypass most blocks.)

Hope this helped, and you are online now!

[David]

Sure he did, blame the little brother. We know it was your parents. Nice try.

[Nan]

Sounds like your parents blocked these. Listen to them and don't try things that will get you in trouble and also get your computer infected with viruses and bots.

[Proxy]

I use these at my school.

textmaster.info
boredinschool.info
schoolsugar.info
wehateschool.info

.pls tell all your friends