10 Ways Which Children Can Bypass a Web Filter That Parents Should Know

10 Ways Which Children Can Bypass a Web Filter That Parents Should Know

The internet is full of information, and not all are appropriate for kids. For this reason, any browsers the children use, have to be fitted with a web filter. Children are brilliant and like sponges, soak up everything around them. You may think your child is not watching while you input your passcodes on your internet filters, such as YouTube parental controls. Yet the kids see and hear more than we give them credit for. It will be a matter of time until they crack your passcode or find ways to bypass the internet filters.

Children can bypass a web filter you have put in place in various ways:

1. Change The Password For The Web Filter

As mentioned above, children have a knack of finding out your password, then change it. You might share the password with the child for a specific reason, then forget to reset it. The kids go online, change the parental controls in place, browse, and then set the controls as they were before. This is a perfect crime, which you might not discover in a hurry.

1. Use The Neighbor’s Open Wi-Fi to Bypass The Web Filter

If your neighbors’ Wi-Fi happens to be open, kids will log into their network if the signal is strong. If the neighbors’ inadvertently share their password and the kids find out, and they can log into that network if the neighbors have no web filter.

1. Use A VPN To Circumnavigate The Web Filter

One of the most popular techniques of evading a web filter is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to browse incognito. A VPN hides an IP address and masks locations, and the children, especially the older ones, download VPNs and use them to bypass your web filter.

1. Browse Privately to Avoid Web Filter

Nowadays, every browser offers a private or incognito mode that does not keep records of sites visited or files downloaded. When kids use the normal mode, the browser records all their online activity on the hard disk. A private browser does not mean they will be anonymous, but their devices won’t keep a record of their operations.

1. Using A Free Proxy Website

Kids know a lot about the internet. They know the fastest way to bypass web filters is to use a web proxy. A web proxy is a technique used to hide an IP address from the sites visited. The web proxies are similar to search engines and easy to access. When the kids use an online proxy, the websites they check out cannot see their actual location because the proxy hides them look like they are browsing from elsewhere.

Web proxies are almost similar to VPNs, except that VPNs encrypt data while proxies do not, among other differences.

1. Using Google Translator

Google Translator is one way the kids may use to bypass your web filter. Most parents have no idea that not only phrases are translatable. If the kids input a URL into Google Translator, it translates the entire page.

1. Using Extensions

Kids use extensions that are available Firefox and Chrome browsers, such as ProxMate and Hola. They are super easy to use, and the kids have a field day once they discover this.

1. Using Portable Browsers

Most browsers contain ‘hidden’ modes that are blocked. The kids can download a Tor Browser on a USB drive and install it on their device with a web filter. Tor redirects traffic to various places on the globe and hides the user identity, making it hard to tell what sites the kids visit.

1. Using The IP in Place of The URL

Blocked sites are stored as a URL list. Using the website’s IP may work. To get the IP address of any website, they ping the domain URL from the command line, and at the command prompt. This is an easy way to bypass the web filter.

1. Viewing Images ‘Accidentally’

Even if the kids cannot get into some websites, they navigate using incognito mode, the run a search through Google via the images tab, it is possible to bypass the web site filter for content restriction. Most photos in the images tab are cached in Google’s servers, thus easily pass the web filter.

Conclusion

Kids, especially teens, are very sly when it comes to bypassing a web filter. They are fuelled by curiosity and sometimes a touch of rebellion. They will try by all means to see what it is you are keeping from them!