Categories: Technology

A Few Great Tips On How To Unblock Websites On Chrome

If you’re using Google Chrome, you have access to one of the biggest quality app libraries on the internet. Rivaled only by the Apple App Store, there are a lot of tools, games, and research materials.

Chrome can be used as a multi-tool to solve a lot of problems, especially when it comes to unblocking websites. Whether you need unrestricted internet or better privacy, here are a few tips, techniques, and concepts to turn Chrome into an unblocking machine.

IMAGE: PEXELS

Private Browsing For Security And Unfiltered Experience

Privacy has become a major battlefield on the internet. It’s a battle that needed to happen; the anonymous internet became a place for people who can’t keep their mouths shut, and security just wasn’t ready for that.

Why does privacy matter? If you’re doing everything legal on the internet, who cares if someone sees your activities? It can get a bit creepy, but why not just let legal systems handle that part of privacy?

The problem is that you can’t tell what certain entities do with your information. They could be using your data as part of a huge, mostly anonymous stream of data to sell products and services better.

A private browser is a common way to secure privacy. One of the easiest ways to track you down online is to use cookies, and private browsers stop cookies as the first order of business.

A cookie is a file that stores information about your internet activity. When you visit a website, that cookie can store a few things:

IP address. Your Internet Protocol (IP) address is a big identifier. It’s your internet connection’s number, and can be used to track down your location down to the city—sometimes the neighborhood or even house! New developments make IP addresses safer, but this is an argument for not expecting security without doing some work for it.
Internet Service Provider. Knowing your ISP can help narrow down your location as well. It takes light research—no super hacker skills required—to look up which ISPs cover which areas. The ISP is responsible for making your IP address less personally-identifying.
Browser type. Mostly harmless, this information helps web designers know the most popular browser in order to tailor the web experience. Hackers could use this to figure out which browsers and versions have the most potential victims. Using pre-existing exploits to attack website users with the biggest impact can happen here.
Operating systems. The same benefits and risks as browser type, but attacks can become much more personal. Critical system files can be targeted with greater precision.
Website activity. This is where things get creepy without your permission. While an IP address can be an obvious indicator of a wire going to your house, website activity can show what you clicked on while visiting a site. Even worse, some cookies can share info with other cookies to map your entire internet experience—and make some frighteningly accurate guesses.

The website activity part does more than invade your privacy.

Have you ever been to a travel website to book a flight or hotel, only to see prices change after a few clicks? Unless it’s a holiday, it’s not other users buying your tickets; there’s suspicion involving price changes due to cookies, along with techniques to get around changes.

Web tracking techniques are also used to track how many times you’ve accessed news articles. Since news and media companies make money through advertising (for now), they often sell access to their articles using cookies as a trigger.

Using a private browser or private tab often clears and blocks that counter, giving you access to as many articles as you want. During earlier phases of the internet killing paper media, IP address blocking would stop new users because IP addresses are reused.

Media sites are stuck with easily-defeated blocking for now.

Private browsers and incognito browser tabs block cookies and other tracking data. If you’re concerned about being tracked or want to avoid being tricked by sales, use Incognito Mode on browsers such as Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.

Virtual Private Networks

You don’t need to clear cookies, switch to private browsers, acquire a new IP address, or other techniques through different tools. A VPN suite can do it all.

VPNs or Virtual Private Networks hide your connection by sending it through a secure tunnel. Within this tunnel, multiple techniques are blocked at the same time.

It’s easier to go to the websites you want without being blocked because you’ve read too many articles. You can also access sites that block based on region, such as viewing US-only Netflix and Hulu shows or accessing Japan and Korea-only online games.

VPN tools such as Surfshark are available on multiple platforms. They can be installed on Windows and Mac computers, added as Chrome extension, used on Android and IOS mobile devices, and even on the Amazon Fire TV system.

Don’t waste time waiting for permission to use the internet. Learn more about how certain sites and resources are blocked. Contact a VPN expert to talk about privacy, network security, and getting access to the sites you want now.

Change Search Engines For Less Search Censorship

The internet is supposed to be curated. There’s nothing wrong with offering up the most relevant results, especially since the vast sea of the internet has so many rising and falling sites. Users need to find the best information.

Who gets to decide what the best means? Even if the internet users of the world came together and chose one authority, how long can they stay objective and neutral? What happens when they retire or die?

You don’t have to speculate too far. Google and Bing are the most popular search engines these days, uncrowning the pre-new millennium options such as Yahoo, Lycos, Ask Jeeves (now just Ask.com) and Dogpile.

Unfortunately, the systems don’t work perfectly. Searches can be influenced by companies and individuals alike with enough resources, and there’s always the suspicion that someone—or multiple someones—intervene behind the scenes.

The internet and the technology world already has an answer to this. If the old option is bad, find another option. Google and Bing dethroned previous search options by showing good results and filtering out redundant options.

The same thing is happening with search engines such as DuckDuckGo. The site is not extremely popular, but they’re a far from new and offer more robust, helpful, unhidden search results.

Unhidden highlights how certain users—namely file-sharers and software pirates—noticed the difference. Many sites that are hidden or completely removed from Google searches because of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) restrictions are visible on DuckDuckGo.

Does this mean DuckDuckGo is the new ruler of search engines? Maybe, but it doesn’t have to be permanent.

Anyone who notices such censorship should learn a valuable lesson: nothing lasts forever. Google used to be a great, unbridled search engine that made finding amazing content easier. The same could happen to any replacement.

It’s also possible that Google could become what it should be again. It’s also possible—especially with Google’s massive funding—to simply fund another search engine in private.

If you are interested in even more technology-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.