Cville, Jonesy's prolly got the best advice. What you are looking for is what is known as a "Web Anonymizer" or "Anonymous Web Proxy." I've known about them for years, but never really tested any. The
Privax Network provides proxies that are available to any user for the purpose of accessing blocked sites:
1) You can use the sites listed on the
Privax Network homepage. Essentially, you got to one of these web pages, enter the web address to where you want to go, and all of your surfing beyond that point is done through that site (
Anonr.com, for example).
2) You can select an IP address from the
hidemyass.com proxy list and set Internet Explorer or Firefox to use that IP address as your proxy (see simple instructions on that page). Having done so, all of the surfing you do will travel through that proxy server and thus allow you to bypass corporate filters. Note that these IP addresses are also part of the Privax Network.
There are serious drawbacks to the above. For the 1st option, you may find that most or all of the sites in question have been already banned by corporate IT. Also, your outgoing traffic while using such a proxy will be labeled as traffic going to that site (i.e., through anonr.com). This may arouse IT suspicion if used much. The benefit of the 1st option is that it is dead simple. If it works, and you don't use it often, there would be little to generate suspicion. Surfing will be slower when using this type of proxy.
The 2nd option is less likely to generate suspicion at the IT/firewall level; however, it requires the changing of browser settings. Your setup may not permit this. I tried many of the IP addresses listed on the list and only got 1 to work. The one I did get to work was dead slow. Tracks would best be covered by using an address that uses SSL from that list; however, I could not get any SSL-enabled addresses to work. SSL would screen not only the destination, but also the content of anonymous surfing. That is, IT would not be able to view the content coming in or out on your Internet connection.
Thus, your options are not really good. In a pinch, one of the sites from the
Privax Network homepage may provide what you need.
On another interesting note, these proxies will only work for web and not for video content; however,
youtubeproxy.ws provides a proxy that can be used for viewing youtube videos.
