How do you use VPNS to unblock twitter and instagram at school?

You're going to have google for VPN services that offer this sort of thing. Some offer free trials, some don't. The good ones tend to average on the neighborhood of $5-$10 a month.

Just bear in mind that some school district IT staff know about VPNs, and actively block them. If they're actively blocking slocial networking sites, they're probably on the lookout for ways to avoid those blocks, too.

Of course, you could just use your cellular data connection to get around all of that.

 

Suck it up and pay attention in class

We tried all the tricks of the trade in my day. The IT guys kept up though.

 

College? Wow I thought you were in high school! My college doesn't block websites. They do monitor for illegal downloading and that sort of thing though.

 

Why do VPN rather than just using your cellular service? They cant block that

 

Can do it without a recurring fee of a service.

Get a DDWRT router, built in VPN server, VPN into you're home network.

 

Wait, your college is blocking these? That's weird as neither service would be a huge bandwidth suck for the school as opposed to Netflix or torrents....

 

You think that is bad?

I live in an apartment building that offers wifi for the tenants... Tumblr is blocked, imgur is blocked, websites about marijuana or other drugs are blocked, all porn sites are blocked, and websites that are about "Sex education" are blocked... i.e. no planned parenthood or sites teaching about safe sex and the like.

Really annoying that I have to use a VPN to browse normally. Have been thinking about getting a petition of all the residents to ask for the filter to be turned off.

 

That can't be right. It's one thing if they have a open, public wifi that's restricted, however you should be able to get your own service or have the ability to pay them for unrestricted services. Seriously, if they give you trouble I would contact your city's housing authority as that's actually likely bordering on being illegal in my "I've watched a law and order episode" knowledge of the law.

 

Hotspot Shield

 

They're censoring the Internet from people over the age of 18? That's not right.

 

Oh, it's right. They use Sonicwall. This topic did prompt me to email them about the ridiculous filtering.

Budweiser.com and marlboro.com are being blocked... terrible.

 

Again, get your own internet, if it's not an option complain to the housing authority in your city as it likely violates numerous sections of renter's codes.

 

I'm not a lawyer, but actually very few renter's codes prohibit landlords from exclusively providing a certain internet connection. Many don't address internet access at all, since internet connections are not yet legally considered a public utility in most places. So, a landlord can tell you they're giving you filtered, restricted, metered internet access... or they can say you can't have internet at all... and if it's in the contract you signed, then in most cases it's perfectly kosher.

So, lots of "rental communities" strike deals like this to offer internet and Cable TV service that they pretty much don't have to pay for for their business uses, but pass on to tenants as part of their rent, and you're stuck with it. The OP *might* be able to get their own internet, but they still have to pay for the one provided by the community. OR... the building might be wired in a way that cable/telco companies can't supply individual DSL or cable internet.... just the prepackaged one.

It sucks, but this is why you have to read what you sign before you move into a new place. Or, get a VPN service.

 

Just to be clear, I can get my own internet connection if I want. It is the building's internet connection, and they are allowed to filter it however they want. What is extra annoying is that the sonicwall breaks about 25% of the DNS requests that I make, saying the response is bad.

I would never pay for my own internet connection because a VPN costs me $5/month. The good news is that the connection is extremely fast, and the DNS errors go away when using a VPN.

 

Well that works out then, so long as they don't get smart and start filtering out VPN connections.

 

I remember back in the day, using proxy sites to get on myspace, livejournal, xanga in high school...I feel old!

 

If you set up a Proxy via proxy service or server, you can bypass the content filter used by Sonicwall. VPN is the other method of getting around the content filter but it can be a little more power hungry if you're not using the iOS VPN utility. That's Settings --> General --> VPN if you haven't seen it yet. You can also bypass content filters in restricted countries by using proxies and VPNs.

 

Where is this, Salt Lake city mormon country? ^)

 

It's a common practice in my college town for the apartment communities, especially the ones for students, to provide basic service from a specific company. You sign an agreement saying you won't use it for illegal activity, and they don't block anything. The dorms on campus will disconnect your service if you torrent too much.

 

If they are providing it free, they can do whatever they want to.