Access Banned Sites With English Translation

While searching for other reviews of OpenDNS, I discovered one site puzzling over whether it is possible to override the system’s “adult” filters on an ad hoc basis. Now, the site in question is a church site (and I won’t name names so as to avoid embarrassment) and they may simply wish to override the lingerie and bikini filters should their users happen to be shopping for their wives…or something like that…who knows?

Anyway, as far as I can tell, filtering cannot be overridden on a whim, so you are stuck with full on filtering based on the categories you choose, across your network or nothing at all. If you only want to check out lingerie temporarily, that’s certainly possible, just make sure those fellow churchgoers are not looking over your shoulder!

Meanwhile, the very same site also explained a neat proxy-type hack that I had not previously seen involving Google translation. Usually, one would only wish to translate from one language to another, there would be no point in translating from French to French, or English to English would there? Well, there might be a point. Those translated pages of Google’s are essentially a proxy cached version of the original page, so could provide a simple way around nanny filters that block sites with specific adult keywords.

The hack is very simple. Carry out a standard Google translation. For instance, translate the Sciencetext homepage into French.

Next, go to your browser address bar. Control-L in Firefox under windows. Navigate to the fr in the URL and change it to en. Hit the return key and Google dutifully translates the Sciencetext page from English to English. It could be yet another tip to add to the How to access banned sites page. Give it a try and let me know how you get on. Just remember who is watching…