Cached Pages

All popular search engines like Google, bing, Yahoo and others spider the entire Internet, recording all the metadata details and keywords that appear on all  the pages are then used to determine a page's quality and rank in the search results (along with multiple other criteria). Along with recording metadata and keywords, most search engines also take a snapshot of all webpages on the Internet and store a cache copy of them. This can be extremely useful for users who are stuck behind company, college or government firewalls and are not allowed to access certain websites. 

When the access to a particular webpage is blocked by your network administrator nevertheless you may still be able to access it by viewing a cached copy of it on a search engine. 

All you need to do this is

Step 1

Start your browser and connect to any popular search engine of your choice. Here we are going to use Google for this example. 

Step 2

write this 

cache:<website you want to access>

e.g. cache:www.aadeez.com

When you are viewing a cached page, typically Google will mention at the top the date and time from which the cached copy is being displayed. This may vary from webpage to webpage, depending upon how often google spiders that respective webpage. 

Archived Pages

Sometimes you may want to access an even older version of the same webpage for research purposes or just out of curiosity. If you want to see what a webpage looked like several years ago, then there is a very cool tool called the  WAYBACKMACHINE that is available for free at www.archive.org. Since the year 1996, archive.org has been spiderming the Internet with the intention of creating a permanent digital library of the Internet for researchers, historians and the general public. This is a fantastic tool that allows you to search for and view an old archived version of popular webpages on the Internet from several months or even years back!

Step 1

Open this link www.archive.org

you will find the WAYBACKTIME

Enter the webaddress of the website you want to visit.

Translate and access a webpage

There are various free translation websites available that allow users to translate text and webpages from one language to another on the Internet. 

Google Translate
Yahoo Babelfish

The technology behind the instant translation of webpage is obviously cool. But what is even cooler is the fact that it is possible to use these translation websites to unblock websites and access censored content! 

Let us assume that your college or company has blocked access to the YouTube website and you are shown the blocked error message each time you try to access it. 

But if you are able to connect with the above given translate websites you can unblock YouTube or any other website. 

Step 1 

Go to Google Translate

Step 2

In the from Tab Choose English and in the to tab choose any other language which you can understand.

  

Step 3

Write www.youtube.com in the translation box. Within a few seconds the another version of the website get displayed on the screen. Click on that link. 

  

The fact of the matter is that even though the website has been translated into Hindi, the interface is still the same and the actual language of the videos that you are going to watch will remain the same. 

Convert format of webpages

There are numerous conversion websites available on the Internet that can convert a website into different formats. 

It is possible to use these websites to access blocked websites on the Internet. 

e.g.

www.pdfmyurl.com

Step 1 

Open your browser and connect to the website

pdfmyurl

enter a website that you want to convert into a pdf document.

  

Step 2

within a few seconds, the website pdfmyurl will allow you to download a PDF version of the website.

Step 3

Open that pdf document after downloading. You've got the webpage which you want to access.

Similarly the other websites are:

url2png.com

browsershots.org

These websites can also be used to access blocked websites on the Internet by fooling the local firewall. 

Access web contents via email

Imagine that there is a website on which there is some text or content that you want to access. Unfortunately, your college or company or government has set up a firewall or filtering device that has blocked access to it. But you still really want to access the data or content on that website. What do you do? 

This is where a fantastic service of accessing webpages via email comes into the picture. 

All you have to do is simply send the web address that you want to access via email to a predefined email address and a few minutes later the requested webpage will be emaild back to you. 

The most popular websites that allow you to request blocked web pages via email are the following: 

www4mail

To request a webpage via email through this website you need to send an email to www4mail@wm.ictp.trieste.it and the subject can be blank and in the body of the email you need to write the requested webpage address.

web2mail

To request a webpage via email through this website you need to first register for free on their website and then send an email from the registered email account to www@web2mail.com and in the subject of the email write the URL of the web page that you wish to request.

Shortened URLs

In the world of Twitter and Instant messaging, where length of characters is a major restriction, shortening of web addresses URLs has become very popular. URL shortening is the technique that allows users to access a particular webpage using its equivalent shortened address instead of the actual web address. Not only does URL shortening make a URL much shorter, it also makes it easier to remember. 

Popular URL shortening websites are: 

www.bit.ly

www.tiny.cc

www.goo.gl

www.tinyurl.com

URL Shortening Means that instead of typing the original long URL in browser address bar, users now have to only type its shortened version. The browser will send an HTTP request to the shortened URL server, which will then send back an HTTP redirect message to the user, redirecting the user to the actual website. Since the initial outgoing HTTP request from the user is going to the URL shortening website and not the actual website that the user is trying to access. 

It means that such a technique can also be used to bypass the local firewall. 

Step 1

Open www.goo.gl and shorten the websites URL which you want to access.

Step 2

Copy and paste the shortened URL into your browser.