Access to YouTube at your school may be blocked for any reason, many schools just block all outgoing traffic to unknown websites, many places will block access to YouTube because they think it could be a productivity killer. While it is no doubt that any website on the Internet can be a productivity killer, YouTube does have a lot of educational content, including tutorials, how-tos, and explanations. If you want to access YouTube at your school, unblocking it should be fairly easy, read on and we will discuss some of the easiest ways to unblock YouTube at school, college or at university without spending money on buying software or mobile apps.
Adding HTTPS on the address
Before digging into other techniques of getting YouTube to work, give this a shot: on the address bar, use HTTPS instead of HTTP when you enter the YouTube’s website address. While it may not work on all schools, many institutions block access to an insecure website. Using HTTPS makes sure that you are connecting to the SSL version of YouTube which may be enough to let you watch YouTube at school.
Unblocking YouTube at School: The VPN way
VPN is probably the best way to access YouTube at school. Not only you will be able to access YouTube, it will also tunnel all of your data, making it very difficult for ISPs to track what website you are visiting. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and it definitely is the best way to unblock YouTube at school.
The market is full of VPN providers which offer their services for free or with a monthly fee. If you don’t want to shell out cash, in my opinion, the best free option is using Opera Browser. Opera comes with built-in free VPN services. Unlike other free VPN’s Opera does not have a daily data limit and it won’t inject ads into your YouTube experience.
Using Opera VPN to access YouTube
To access YouTube at school, just download Opera from here. Install the app, Open it and click on the VPN button on the left side of the address bar.
Apart from Opera, there are tons of good VPNs available, including:
- TunnelBear VPN: Good service, it has a limited free tier. You will have to upgrade to a paid tier if you use a lot of YouTube.
- Hotspot Shield: With Ads, this VPN offers a free experience. Keep in mind that they may keep a log of your browsing activity on the free tier.
- ExpressVPN: It’s a paid VPN, but the service is fast and prices are reasonable. ExpressVPN does not track your browsing activities.
Just for watching YouTube at school, I think Opera’s free built-in VPN should be more than enough though and it has an Ad-Blocker built in too.
Using Proxy Websites
If you don’t want to install any app or extension and using HTTPS is also not working, using Proxy Web Addresses should be the way to go. With this method, all of your data is sent and received by your browser is passed through a proxy web address which should let you unblock YouTube at school. To change your Proxy Web Address, simply do the following:
First, you will have to find a proxy address to use, you can browse this website or search on the internet for free proxy addresses.
- Once you have a Proxy Address, on Chrome open the menu and then Click on Settings.
- Under settings, click on Advanced to get to proxy options.
- Now, under System, click on Open Proxy Settings.
- Under Connections tab, click on LAN settings.
- On the next dialog, enable “Use a Proxy server for your LAN”
- Enter the Address and Port number you have got from the internet.
- Click on OK.
Using Proxy Web Addresses to access YouTube at school
If a proxy address does not work, you can always try other address. To disable a proxy, just uncheck Use a proxy server for your LAN in the dialog box.
Just Download the video Locally
In case changing proxy is not your cup of tea and you don’t want to install apps on your school computer, you can simply download YouTube videos locally, We covered some of the best ways for downloading YouTube videos that you can check out. Otherwise, you can find the video via searching for the topic on Google and then clicking on the Videos tab just below the search box.
Then copy the video address and enter it on an online video downloading site such as KeepVid or Savefrom.net
Unblocking YouTube With TOR
TOR can be used to unblock YouTube at school
TOR is a very secure Mozilla Firefox-based web browser, which lets you browse the web anonymously. It can easily unblock any website that your School or college may have blocked access to. TOR also hides your IP address so it becomes very tough to see and track your browsing data. TOR is free to use and it will definitely let you browse and watch YouTube at your school or university.
Using Proxy Websites
Using Proxy Sites is one of the popular ways of getting around internet restrictions on schools and offices. While Proxy sites are not as private as using a VPN service, these don’t need you to install any browser extension and most of them are very easy to use. Proxy Websites have an address bar on them where you can enter the web address of the site (which will be youtube.com in your case). Once you have pressed enter, the website will be opened in a new tab with a proxy address.
Here are some popular Proxy Websites:
- Kproxy.com
- Hide.me
One of the major problems with Proxy Sites is that most of the inject unreasonable number of ads within web pages, to get around this, you can always use an ad blocker or a web browser that has built-in ad blocking features such as Opera or Brave.
How Do You Unblock YouTube at School?
Well, I have always used Opera’s built-in VPN to access YouTube at my college. How do you get YouTube at your institution? Let us know in the comments below.
