Internet Censorship | Tools To Bypass Internet Censorship & Firewalls

Since ages, administrative bodies of various countries had been imposing restrictions on the freedom of commoners in some form or the other; the pathetic situation still continues in most of the Asian, African and Middle Eastern nations.

Whereas, in the older times, the rights of speech and rational thinking were at stake, today, these have been replaced with internet censorship, with primary limitations on blogging and on use of social networking sites. Notwithstanding the reason behind such infecting decisions, it is always the ordinary citizen, along with the print & electronic media who are at the receiving end. But thanks to the advent of the prevalent website unblocking technologies, the affected ones can now have the much-desired sigh of relief. Internet Censorship and VPN

Most Internet Censored countries

As per the reports being carried out by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ),North Korea scores heavily among the most censored countries where the role of media and journalism is next to nothing. This is followed by Burma where are all the TV & Radio channels, along with newspapers are under the control of Junta, the Burmese government that has extended its grip over the country’s leading internet service and satellite feed provider as well.

Nations that have long being ruled by single rulers are worst affected by such censorships with Libya, Syria, Cuba, Tunisia, Vietnam and Turkmenistan being the torch bearers in this regard. Iran and Uzbekistan are also not far away in attacking the freedom of press and individuals with the former containing a staggering number of imprisoned journalists, which is shamelessly more than in any other nation.

Somewhat similar story has plagued Equatorial Guinea where the state-run radio describes the president as “the country’s God” and in Eritrea that is the lone country to be without any private media outlet. And last but not the least, how can we forget the “Great Firewall of China” that blocks every single web content it finds even a little bit suspicious or against the administration. Though some of these nations are justified in blocking some objectionable pornographic websites or those creating differences between communities but on a broader perspective, these reasons are just to cover up the bigger motive, i.e. to safeguard their political interests.

All these nations have either blocked the internet or has made it so expensive that it looks no less than a luxury. They monitor all the traffic on Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and other mailing sites and monitor the websites of all the news agencies and those owned by human rights organizations very closely.

In some countries like Iran, people are compelled to seek permission from the concerned ministry even for blogging or for creating a personal page, can you believe and bear that! Following is the Map of Internet Censorship, courtesy Wikipedia.

Internet Censorship Map

Bypassing Internet censorship

In the contemporary time, when internet has a bigger role to play in the people’s life worldwide, being unable to open a particular website undoubtedly sucks. However, to act as a breather legions of bypassing techniques get surfaced now and then, whether or not they are efficacious, solely rests on the extent of censorship in the respective countries. Of all the below mentioned bypassing Internet censorship techniques, VPN for sure, holds an upper hand. Let us take them one by one.

Proxy

It often helps to unblock the censored websites, but its effectiveness is always under serious scrutiny since it is no more an alien thing. The techies hired by governments are well aware of the ways to block it. Moreover, its slow pace of browsing is no less than a torture; forget about video streaming.

DNS

Domain name system is a naming convention that requires you to provide IP address to access a website instead of its URL. But in long term, such a system cannot do much when the ISP blocks the original IP. As in case of many websites in China and Iran, which have been DNS blocked and DNS Poisoned.

Tor

The tor network allows the data to pass through an assemblage of different computers connected together as nodes before it is transferred to the requested information. Throughout the process, the secrecy of users remains intact. But unfortunately, this technology can be intercepted and accessed at the other end, easily as confessed by the Tor team itself.

Mirroring

Mirrored sites are nothing but the imitation of the original sites that are hosted in some specific regions with alternate URLs where they are not blocked. Logically, mirroring of each website is not possible because they are uncountable and since they are not regularly updated, chances are bleak to get updated websites through this technology.

VPN

The Virtual Private Network is above all, when it comes to bypassing the websites that are completely inaccessible otherwise. Countries that have been successful in devising foolproof strategies to nullify the effect of rest of the other website techniques are yet to find a concrete solution to nail down the VPN. However, as all the good things accompany certain price tag, the same is true for VPNs as well. Prominent vendors including HideMyAss VPN, PureVPN, StrongVPN, IAPS VPN, OverPlay and more, offer varied VPN subscription services and allow you to access restricted websites by providing IP address that hails from that particular location.

Bottom Line

Countries would continue to censor the internet to full or partial extent with the intent to satisfy their political goals. But if you still dare to go against their wish and bypass their firewalls, several unblocking technologies are always there for your help with VPN leading from the front.

See the list of our Top 10 VPN Services to bypass Internet Censorship. If you are in a country where it is difficult for you to buy a VPN Service, you should go with one the Free VPN Services (We do not guarantee their effectiveness). We also have a article for you on how to pay online for VPN in internet Censored Countries.

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You can also see here the all time Top 10 VPN Providers list.

Wish you a Happy and Private Internet Life !!

Allen

Allen is an internet secuirty and privacy geek. He is an Editor at Bestvpnservice.com and loves to explore new VPN Services and technologies. He is also in love with blogging, his life (not wife) and travelling. He is a die hard soccer fan and is crazy for Manchester United.