How To: Bypass DansGuardian in Chrome, Firefox & Internet Explorer

What is DansGuardian?

Schools, offices and universities often tend to use a software like DansGuardian to prevent people from accessing certain websites - websites like Youtube, Facebook, Myspace, and so on. However, if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to access a blocked website... it's possible! As a matter of fact, it's quite easy. 

How to bypass?

The way this is accomplished is my changing your IP (Internet Protocol) address so that DansGuardian doesn't recognize the computer being used as a computer in the organization, thereby allowing access to any site - even blocked ones. The easiest and quickest way to change your IP address is to use a proxy.

Step 1 Finding a proxy

While proxies are easy to find, they do get blocked quite quickly by DansGuardian, so you need a way to get new, fresh proxies when you need them. One way to do this is to subscribe to certain newsletters that send fresh, new proxies to your email for free. One of the sites that offer this service is Peacefire. You could also consider going to this proxy list where they offer you new proxies that are guarunteed to work. While standard proxies are in the format XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:YY, where the Xs is the IP address and the Y's is the port (don't worry if you don't understand this computer mumbo-jumbo!), an alternative is web proxies - more on this later.

Step 2 Using the proxy - Internet Explorer

Once you have a proxy in the form XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX:YY, to use it you need to Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools->Internet options and click on the 'Connections' tab. Then click on 'Lan Settings'. In the 'Address' box, type in the IP address (the Xs), and in the 'Port" box, type in the Port number (the Ys). Finally, click the OK button in both windows open, and you have a working proxy!

Step 3 Using the proxy - Mozilla Firefox

Go to Tools->Options and click on the Advanced button. Then click on the Network tab, and click on settings. From there, continue by entering the IP address into the HTTP box and Port as shown in Step 2.

Step 4 Using the proxy - Google Chrome

Click on the spanner icon to the right of the address bar, and click on Preferences. Click on the 'Under the Hood' tab, and click on the 'Change Proxy Settings' button. Make sure 'Manual proxy configuration' is selected and proceed to entering the proxy details into the HTTP proxy box. 

Step 5 Using web proxies

Some websites offer to allow you to browse websites while using their website as a proxy. You can find a lot of these websites by Googling them, and they are quite straight forward to use. Examples of these include Zend2 and BoomProxy.

Warnings

• Be careful when sending sensitive information while using a proxy - you are running a risk of your information being exposed!
• Be careful you don't get in trouble with your school/university/office as bypassing DansGuardian isn't very ethical and can even be illegal in some cases.

Tips

• Web proxies are often slower than normal ones, so if you're experiencing speed problems, try not using the web proxy.