These days, more and more schools are blocking access to social media channels for their students. In the eyes of many, they do it for a good reason, as students shouldn’t be distracted and focus on their studies. However, if you feel like you can decide whether social media channels distract you and want to access them during school, read this article, and we will reveal an easy way to unblock Instagram (and other social media channels)! But before we get to that, let’s understand the process of how schools block Instagram on their premises.
How Schools Do It?
It’s not rocket science. Anyone with even a basic knowledge of networks, routers, IP addresses can do it in just a few clicks. This is how it happens.
A router, which is used to disseminate a Wi-Fi network across the school, is accessed by the school administrator. The school administrator has a list of websites and portals that authorities at schools don’t want their students to access. The administrator feeds this list to the router. And, when any student punches a request to access a website, it travels through the said router. The router runs that request through the list of banned URLs or IP addresses and blocks your request. It’s that simple.
The result – you either see a server error message or the page never loads.
Unblock Instagram via Your Device
If you are allowed to carry your devices at school, such as phones, tablets, or laptops (of course, for studying purposes), you can very quickly unblock Instagram. Not just that, if you know what you are doing, you will be able to unblock any website or platform, like Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, etc.
While there are several ways/methods to undo the blocking, possibly the easiest one is by using a Proxy Server.
What is a Proxy Server?
In simple terms, a proxy server acts as a middleman. In the world of computer networks, it acts as an intermediary between you and the other websites and their servers.
Types of Proxy Servers
- Fully anonymous – mostly paid, these kinds of proxy servers are untraceable and are an excellent solution for secure, anonymous browsing.
- Partly anonymous – these servers leave behind breadcrumbs. In the form of an IP address, as proof of their existence on a network. A switched-on webmaster can easily trace them and put them on the blacklist.
- Transparent – they are not secure at all. Typically, these types of proxy servers are only used to increase browsing speed.
Back in the day, using a proxy server was a very technical and tricky thing. However, today, all you need to do is visit the proxy server web page and type in the URL you want to unblock, such as Instagram, and press enter. Voila, you have unblocked Instagram. The fun part is your school’s server will only see an active URL but not the content which is being broadcast by it.
The downside to this is that Instagram has blacklisted several proxy servers to prevent spammers from creating fake identities. Schools and offices are also becoming wiser and adding proxy unblock websites to their block list.
Dark Side of Free Proxy Servers
In fact, not many secure proxy servers are not readily available because they charge a fee to provide their quality services. In such cases, people tend to head towards the freely available proxy servers. They may serve the purpose, but browsing through them is not very safe. Since these servers are free to use, they often attract spammers and hackers to disperse malicious viruses through various ads or to steal valuable information from your IP addresses. You have been warned!
Use of Proxy Servers beyond Unblocking Instagram
Unblocking Instagram at school or at a workplace is just one minor function of proxy servers. In a developer’s hand, they can be used for many purposes. For example, let’s say you wish to make multiple Instagram accounts from your device. Can you do it? The answer is no. Social media platforms like Instagram does not allow you to make several accounts from the same IP address. But you can create as many accounts as you want via a proxy server, as they provide you with multiple new IP addresses.
Bonus: Use a VPN service
A proxy and a VPN service can provide you a secure channel to visit the websites without any restrictions. They do the job perfectly! However, if your purpose is only to secure browsing and not exchange any sensitive data, proxies are more than good enough. Furthermore, proxies are easy to use and will work on any device. So, here it is, now you know how to unblock Instagram at school easily.
