Internet Explorer disabled or blocked at the office? Bypass restrictions

Posted on May 8, 2008 at 5:31 am

Is Internet Explorer disabled by an Administrator? Depending on the corporation you work for, your level of Internet access can vary from completely blocked to full access. One common restriction that many corporations place on computers is disabling Internet Explorer.

This basically prevents you from opening Internet Explorer at all and just gives you a message that it has been disabled by an Administrator. On top of that, if you try to install a different browser, such as Firefox, Safari, etc, you might not have install privileges.

So is there any way to bypass this if Internet Explorer is disabled on your computer? Yes! It’s actually a pretty sneaky way to use Internet Explorer without ever opening it! Here’s how.

The workaround for this problem is to use Windows Help Files. Yes, oddly enough, you can use the help files that are available in most Windows applications to surf the web without using Internet Explorer directly.

First, let’s open up a Windows application like Notepad or Wordpad or MS Paint. Then go to Help and click on Help Topics or press F1 to bring up the Help section.

Now in the Help section, right-click anywhere on the main window bar (the blue bar) and click on Jump to URL.

A new window pops up and there is a line for you to enter in a URL of a website you would like to view. Go ahead and type in any website that you want to visit! Remember to type in the full URL, like http://www.online-tech-tips.com, not just www.abc.com.

Go ahead and click OK and you’re now browsing the web again inside of the Help window! Sweet eh!

Note that this only solves the problem of Internet Explorer being disabled on your computer. It does not mean that the company does not have other security measures in place like proxy servers or a firewall that could prevent browsing of the Internet.

If you want to figure out how to access blocked websites, read my article on using a service called JAP to do just that. Enjoy! Source: Tech Xpress

Technorati Tags: internet explorer disabled, internet explorer blocked, IE disabled by administator, access blocked websites

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8 Responses to “Internet Explorer disabled or blocked at the office? Bypass restrictions”

Babak said on : May 8th, 2008 at 7:19 am

Good job.
I wrote about it about 2 weeks ago.
It’s a useful trick.
Check my post out here:
http://zangoole.com/1387/02/05.....n_browser/

Abhijeet from Jeet Blog said on : May 8th, 2008 at 9:12 am

Nice trick. I have tried this before through the help option in Calculator.

akishore said on : May 8th, 2008 at 9:50 am

Abhijeet, yeah it can be done from any program with a Help section in CHM format. Works really well!

Haris said on : May 8th, 2008 at 5:10 pm

WOW! That’s really cool. Never knew about that!

Help Desk Geek said on : May 8th, 2008 at 5:14 pm

Good idea Aseem, this could be a good way to bypass those bustard administrators… though I think there a few administrators that will block the internet at the computer level if any. does not work, is enefficient, just look at this trick jejeje.. most of the time the internet is blocked at the firewall or proxy level. a few days ago we had to block some facebook and myspace users, and we did it using computer names and mac addresses. of course those bustards can still get to those sites from another computer, but we prohibitted them access to any other computer using active directory. but you know people always find their way around.. keep up the good work man I read your blog everyday..

akishore said on : May 8th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

Haris, yeah it’s pretty sweet! Always something for IT Administrators to worry about…I’m sure they’ll be a group policy to block this also eventually!

Help Desk Geek, yeah I’m an IT Administrator myself, so it’s fun to have this game back and forth…block…then find some way around it…block…etc.

Thanks for visiting the site and reading it everyday! Do post more comments as you have a great deal of knowledge! I have added your site to my RSS reader, so will be visiting soon!

Kitkat said on : May 9th, 2008 at 12:16 am

Nice trick, but I can’t seems to be able to locate this Jump url thingy in my help file. Maybe it isn’t available in the Vista’s help system?

Colin said on : May 11th, 2008 at 1:31 am

very very nice trick.
I tried for it. but cannot display any pages.
assumed that i was blocked by the firewall,
but anyway, the system is bareness in front of all you system expert.