Bypass YouTube Ban in Thailand, Iran, and at School!

Video sharing sites are under increasing pressure with the recent bans of YouTube in Thailand for a video insulting the Thai king and DailyMotion in China for unknown reasons. In addition, since December, Iran has blocked access to YouTube and several other "Western" sites. Add to that, access to YouTube, MySpace, and other social sites has been censored in schools and the workplace.

How do you get around the bans and censorship? You might say, "Use a proxy." However, most web proxies don't work because they don't support videos. Web proxies are also referred to as CGI or PHP proxies as opposed to proxies that you can install onto your own computer. YouTubeProxy, appropriately enough, does support videos on sites including YouTube, MySpace, Google, and Bebo. You can even upload videos or other files.

To use YouTubeProxy, you type in the site you want to go to like www.youtube.com and hit Go. One minor annoyance is that the video embedded on the homepage doesn't work, but otherwise, all the other videos on YouTube play well. More advanced proxy settings like encrypting the URL, hiding referrer, and managing cookies might also be used.