Throughout the life of the internet, people have had access to immense amounts of information. Naturally, pornography became available to anyone with a computer and internet access. Software developers quickly designed internet filters, aimed towards people who have a problem with this. Unfortunately, these filters block out a lot of websites that have purely non-pornographic content, or contain mostly useful things or interesting things that someone might want to see. In this article, I will show you how to get by these internet filters, for whatever reason, in three main areas. Then, I will give advice on cleaning up history and not getting caught.

Unfortunately, internet filters are extremely difficult to "hack", and even with my own knowledge of computers, I have not found any easy ways to disable a filter. Essentially, the filter becomes a part of the operating system, generally speaking, which makes it hard to get rid of or temporarily disable. Even if you were to get rid of it, though, you might find yourself in a bit of trouble when whoever installed the filter finds out it is gone.

OPTION #1 - DIFFERENT OS Thus, the best way to get by is to not use the computer that is "infected" with the filter. This is simpler than it sounds, and there are two ways that work best:

1. Use a LiveCD LiveCDs are usually Linux based, and are basically an entire operating system that boots off of a CD and don't affect your system at all. You can download a free CD (I recommend Ubuntu, www.ubuntu.com) pop it in your computer, reboot it, and voila! You have an operating system, connected to the internet, without restrictions,

2. Use another computer Obviously, most people can't do this, but you might consider saving a crappy computer, or building one, and using it to connect to the internet when you need access, while your parents or whoever that is restricting you isn't around.

OPTION #2 - USING WEB PROXIES The most popular way to get by filters is proxies. Proxies are intended for anonymity, but are commonly used to bypass filters. A lot of them are blocked, however, because they blatantly do exactly what the filter is trying to prevent. Here, I'll show you how to find your own proxies that are unlikely to be blocked by filters.

1. Google searching "CGIProxy" Most of the proxies you use are from a famous script called CGIProxy, by the wonderful James Marshall. Googling this word will hopefully not be blocked, and if it isn't you can scroll to the last few pages and find a page that is titled CGIProxy and nothing else. Always go to the fifth page or more to get accurate results. Or, Google "CGIProxy error" in quotes, and you'll get a bunch of other proxies hosted on random sites. Go to the results with the title CGIProxy error in the title, and hit restart, unchecking all boxes to get where you want.

2. Google searching "PHProxy" This search is similar to CGIProxy, only this time click the webpages with the title "PHProxy" and check/uncheck all desired boxes. Again, go to random pages on the Google search, about page 5 and up.

3. Make your own Another way, if all else fails, is to make your own page with a proxy. Find a hosting service that supports CGI for CGIProxy or PHP for PHProxy. You can find these hosting services free most of the time, and your URL will be something like domain.com/yourproxy or yourproxy.domain.com. Go to:

http://www.jmarshall.com/ for CGIProxyhttp://www.phproxy.org/ for PHProxyDeleting history is easier than you think If you are using the above steps, you might want to clear your history. I've found it looks a bit suspicious when there is absolutely no history in your web browser, but it is also tedious to delete every website that you shouldn't be on. The solution is a browser extension called Distrust, it is for Firefox, but that shouldn't matter because everyone should be using Firefox anyway. See the website, http://www.gness.com/ for more details.

OPTION #3 - ATTAIN THE PASSWORD As a final resort, the password can be retrieved if all else fails. This is an extremely risky way to surf happily, but has also proven to be effective, in my case. A keylogger program can record every single keystroke on that computer, and save it in a password protected file for you to open, and find the password that whoever installed the filter used. The password, of course, unlocks the filter, but you need to start the keylogger, make sure the password is typed, stop it, and get rid of it before someone discovers it.

An important note about keyloggers: They are considered Trojan viruses. They can harm your computer if you aren't careful, and they can be detected by antivirus software. Make sure you test it before anyone else gets on. Recommended for advanced users only.

I realize I only just barely covered enough to give you an idea of what you can do, but this article is more for advanced users who haven't thought of these ideas yet. If you need help, I'd be glad to help out, just send me an email and I will guide you through any of these steps.