Editor’s note: For a newer, updated version of this post, check it out here.

Is you school, college or office blocking you from getting on social network sites like Friendster, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Hi5, Orkut, etc? Here’s few ways you can bypass the restrictions and surf like normal, but please check with your local authorities before using them. We will not held any responsibility if you’ve breach the regulations of any.

Full list after jump.

Using IP Instead of URL This depends on the software/application used. Sometimes blocked sites are stored as a list of URLs (eg. www.yahoo.com, www.donwload.com,etc) and typing the IP instead of the URL might sometimes work. In a local computer, doing a ping domain.com command in Command Prompt (Mac users use Terminal) will return you the IP address. You can also do it online via www.whatsmyip.org

Redirection with Short URL service Sometimes the URL you intend to browse might be ban, but converting them to another a shorter URL with short URL services might just help you to bypass the settings. Here’s 2 Short URL service we’ve previously mentioned – MooURL, SnipURL

Google Cache Search engines like Google and Yahoo cache webpages and these cached pages are stored in search engines themselves, which likely will be added to the blocked list. Click on the ‘cache’ will bring you to a cache version of the page, as updated as how Google caches it.

Internet Archive – Wayback Machine Wayback Machine is a internet service that periodically keeps a copy of almost all websites in the Internet way from the date they’re started. Clicking on the latest copy of what Wayback Machine have should be somewhat similar to the real site. Another way to access blocked sites via caches.

Anonymous Surfing Some site allows you to take advantage of their proxy or domain to surf other sites as anonymous. Here’s 90+ proxy websites we’ve previously mentioned. More anonymous surfing services: 90+ Proxy Websites To Access Blocked Websites

Use Proxy in Browsers There are tons of sites out there that distributes free proxies of almost any country. Check out the following methods on how/where to insert proxies in your web browsers. Proxy Surfing – Firefox Under Advanced tab, select Network tab, then click inside Connection Settings. Select Manual proxy configuration, put proxy under HTTP proxy. Proxy Surfing – Internet Explorer Go to Tools -> Internet Options. Select Connections tab. Click into LAN Settings, check Proxy Server. Insert your proxy URL inside Address.

Bypass with Translations services Online translation services like AltaVista BabelFish, Google Translate allows you to translate a website from one language to another and display the translated results on their own page.The trick here is to enter the URL (website you’re blocked), retranslate it even if you don’t need to and let Google or AltaVista fetch you the content.

Subscribe to RSS Feed

This might not work for all sites, but if the site you intended to visit provides RSS feeds, you can subscribe and read it with a RSS reader, or have it regularly send the contents to your email

Retrieve web pages via Email

Web2Mail is a free service that sends websites you want to read right into your inbox. All you need to do is send an email to www@web2mail.com with the URL as subject title.