How to Open Facebook at School and Office

These days most academic institutions and corporate offices block popular social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook and Orkut so that students/employees don’t waste their time chatting with their buddies or checking their status updates and focus on being more productive instead. However if you are addicted to Facebook but are unable to access it due to Facebook being blocked at school, college or office, here are some methods that will let you open Facebook and access it without any hassles:
1. Change the DNS Server


Most sites including Facebook are usually blocked at schools, colleges and offices by blocking it in the DNS server itself. But you can easily bypass it by switching to some other DNS such as OpenDNS or Google Public DNS. Only a while back some websites including Youtube & torrent sites were not opening up in my PC. No matter how many settings I tweaked, I was unable to access these websites. I had heard of OpenDNS, so I decided to change my DNS settings to those of OpenDNS. Right after I did that, I was able to access all of those websites without any problems. Fortunately, you can do the same since changing your Internet’s DNS setting is quite easy. If you are using Windows, go to Control Panel > Network Connections and select the connection that you are currently using. Right click on it and click on Properties. Then choose Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
Click on the Properties tab and check the “Use the following DNS server addresses” option. Now enter the following values in Preferred DNS Server and Alternate DNS Server respectively (OpenDNS):
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220

2. Using Gmail

Since Gmail can never be blocked by any institution or office, you can use it safely for accessing Facebook indirectly. All you have to do is to add a gadget by going to Gmail Settings > Labs and looking up the ‘Add any gadget by URL‘ option. Click on “Save changes” button.

Return to the Settings page and you will see that a tab called ‘Gadgets‘ has been added. Click on it and enter the following URL in the ‘Add a gadget by its URL’ fieldand click add. Here’s the URL:
http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml

After adding this gadget, a Facebook gadget will appear at the bottom-left of your screen, just below the Chat. Click on expand and login to your FB account. When you first login to your account, a ‘request for confirmation’ screen will appear. Simply click on the Allow button. Once logged in, you can easily update your status and read all recent status updates by your friends.
3. Using Opera Mini

Another method to open blocked Facebook is by using the web version of opera mini browser. Just download Opera mini simulator that functions exactly as the Opera mini browser would do on any mobile phone. In order to access Facebook, you will have to use the mobile version of Facebook – http://m.facebook.com.

4. Edit the Hosts File

Here’s a simple trick you can use to unblock Facebook on the computer you using.

Go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

Right click on hosts file and open it with notepad

Add these 4 lines at the end of the file:

125.252.224.88 facebook.com

125.252.224.88 www.facebook.com

69.63.181.12 apps.facebook.com

153.16.15.71 upload.facebook.com

153.16.15.71 login.facebook.com

Now save the file.

5. ScrapBoy

Scrapboy is a desktop application that allows you to manage Facebook, Myspace and Orkut from your desktop. Just enter your Facebook login details and access Facebook directly from your desktop. You can change notification options from the Notifications tab in the Preferences window of Scrapboy.

Do you know of any other methods to open blocked Facebook? Share them with us.