text: can someone make a proxy that can get past the schools firewalls?   i work as the network administrator for a school district in virginia. it would appear that you are confused about different network security devices. a real firewall, such as a cisco pix, you cannot bypass whatsoever by any kind of proxy server: network traffic is physically forced through the box and will not be affected by anything you do with your browser.  you seem to be referring to some kind of web content engine, that will filter certain websites based on various criteria. in my district, once again we force our traffic through this box, so at least in our case, you would not be able to bypass it no matter what you did. this may also be the case in your own district.  if your school district's internet traffic is managed properly, you won't be able to get around it by simply changing internet explorer or firefox options, unfortunately (from your perspective) or fortunately (from mine and my colleages'!). i would suggest you simply ask to learn more about your district's network setup. i know that i am very glad to explain to students so that they have a better understanding of how things work. but know this, unless your district is really doing something wrong, they can and will be aware of most of the "bad stuff" you can think of to try. i don't always act on it, but i receive a list of each computer with lots of information (such as time, length of visit, number of attempts, whether it's pornographic, so on) each time someone tries to do something like go to a blocked website. i imagine your districts' administrator(s) can do the same. if they see you get blocked, they probably won't even say anything, but if you start hitting open proxy servers, even if you fail to bypass their filter, they might come after you to have a little talk.