ChatGPT Unblocked 2023 [How to Unblock AI Chatbots] – Cloudwards
ChatGPT can be a powerful tool for school or work, but you can’t work with it if your organization has it blocked. We’ll show you how to use a VPN to change your IP address and get ChatGPT unblocked so you can continue generating text.
ChatGPT released in November 2022 and instantly upended online discourse. Since then, it’s become notorious for both its skill in crafting humanlike responses and its ability to provoke strong reactions, including censorship. In this article, we’ll show you how to get ChatGPT unblocked if your school, workplace or country has banned it.
As the first widely available artificial intelligence (AI) operating on a large language model (LLM), ChatGPT revolutionized everyone’s idea of what AI is capable of. It has written everything from songs to medical school essays in natural language, and shows promise as an assistant, idea generator and virtual customer service representative.
However, not everyone is bullish on ChatGPT and the emerging AI language model it represents. Aside from already facing a libel lawsuit and regularly providing incorrect information, ChatGPT has been banned by school districts across the U.S. for fear students will use it to write essays.
We’re not here to judge whether or not ChatGPT is a good thing for humanity. What you do with it is your business. We just believe the internet should be free to use, so today, we’ll teach you how to use a virtual private network (VPN) to access ChatGPT and other banned web apps.
The current release, ChatGPT-3.5, is available for all users on the free version of the OpenAI website. For a premium, you can get early access to the more advanced model, ChatGPT-4.
Go to chat.openai.com, create an account and sign in.
Chat GPT is located at chat.openai.com.
If ChatGPT is blocked on your network, a VPN is by far the simplest way to unlock it. Most online blockers prevent access to sites by tracing your connection through your IP address. To get around them, all you need to do is switch to a different IP address that isn’t blocked. Using a virtual private network to change your IP address is easy, even if you aren’t tech-savvy.
For this guide, we’ll use ExpressVPN, but the process is similar for every top service. If ExpressVPN doesn’t work for you, pick another service from our best VPN list.
Go to the website of ExpressVPN or your chosen VPN and click the button to subscribe — it’s usually prominent. Pick a payment plan you can afford, then enter a payment method and confirm. If money is an issue, you can also access ChatGPT with one of the best free VPN services.
Next, download the VPN client for the device on which you want to use ChatGPT. Most websites have a page that lists all the VPN apps available. Find the one that matches your operating system, then download and install it.
To get a new IP address that isn’t blocked, start up your VPN app of choice and find the server list. Select a server outside the area where ChatGPT is blocked for you. If the ban is from school or business network restrictions, any location will work, but if your whole country has blocked ChatGPT, look for an address in another nation.
Click the button to connect to the VPN server you chose. Assuming your VPN isn’t suffering from DNS leaks (which all our recommended services are free of), your internet traffic will now appear to come from a location without ChatGPT blocks.
Head to chat.openai.com and log in to your OpenAI account.
If you still find yourself unable to gain access to ChatGPT, troubleshoot by trying a different browser or a different location, much like you’d do when trying to beat the Netflix VPN ban. In extreme cases, you might need to choose a different VPN service, but we’ll look at three that have never steered us wrong later on.
Concerns about ChatGPT have come from every corner of society, with some sites that host user-generated content banning anything written by ChatGPT. Various educational institutions, businesses and governments have gone even further by blocking the app from their networks altogether.
The highest-profile intervention in the United States so far came from the New York City school system, which blocked ChatGPT for all students, faculty and staff on its networks. A spokesperson said that, in the department’s opinion, ChatGPT “does not build critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for academic and lifelong success.”
Several large corporations have followed suit in banning ChatGPT on any employee internet connection, including Amazon, Verizon, JPMorgan and Accenture. These decisions result from data privacy concerns: Information entered into the chatbot is not necessarily secure, and could leak to ChatGPT users outside the organization.
The biggest bans have come from entire countries. Italy recently lifted its nationwide ban on ChatGPT, but it remains blocked in other countries, including Russia, China, Iran and Cuba. That said, no matter the reasoning behind a ChatGPT ban, you can almost always get around it with a virtual private network. In the next section, we’ll explain how.
As we’ve covered, the best method of accessing ChatGPT is to use a VPN to get yourself a new IP address. However, there are dozens of VPNs on offer, each claiming to be the best. We’ve tested almost all of them in depth. The three listed here are our favorites, free of slow speeds and data breaches.
Pros:
Cons:
The task of unblocking ChatGPT is fairly simple — all you have to do is change your IP address to one that won’t be targeted by the block. The winning VPN is the one that adds the least complication to that task. Without a doubt, that’s ExpressVPN.
The three most important factors that make ExpressVPN the best VPN to unblock ChatGPT are its secure server network, interface and speeds. Thanks to its network of server locations in 94 countries, you won’t just have tons of options for IP addresses that can access ChatGPT, you’ll likely also enjoy lag-free performance on whichever one you pick.
It’s also very easy to download and use, so even if you’ve never touched a VPN before, you can get ChatGPT access back just a few minutes after you realize there’s a block.
The only drawback is the price: Unlike with most other VPNs, you don’t save a lot of money by signing up for several months in advance. However, the VPN brings excellent value, and you can test ExpressVPN with the 30-day money-back guarantee. Our ExpressVPN review has the full story.
Pros:
Cons:
NordVPN is a close runner-up to ExpressVPN, and beats it out in certain areas — notably, it won our competition to find the best fast VPN. It’s a great choice to unblock ChatGPT for many of the same reasons: It’s fast, easy to use and doesn’t leak.
One of NordVPN’s best features is a set of specialty servers optimized for particular tasks, including getting around geoblocks. This makes it one of the best VPNs for streaming, but may also make those servers better at getting around other blocks, since their IP addresses are constantly monitored to stay ahead of censorship.
You can also save money more easily on NordVPN by picking a long-term plan. Although its server network isn’t as extensive as ExpressVPNs, and some of its features aren’t as widely available, it makes up for that with its own strengths. You can also test NordVPN with its 30-day money-back guarantee. Our NordVPN review can tell you more.
Pros:
Cons:
We generally recommend you pay for a VPN. Though there are some great free services, as shown in our free VPN services roundup, you’ll never get the same convenience that you can from a premium model. Luckily, there are extremely affordable services like Surfshark to bridge that gap.
Other than the savings on its longer plans, Surfshark’s biggest perk is that there’s no limit on how many devices can connect under one account, so if you have family members who also need to unblock ChatGPT, it’s a great choice. Like NordVPN and ExpressVPN, it’s fast enough to do the job — latencies can be high, but that’s less relevant for ChatGPT.
The only real caveat about Surfshark is that its privacy policy allows it to save the IP address of visitors to its website for marketing purposes. As such, Surfshark may not be a good option if using a VPN might get you into legal trouble. It’s perfectly safe for all other users, though. Our Surfshark review describes this all in more detail. You can also try Surfshark with the money-back guarantee.
Almost all website geoblocks function by preventing certain IP addresses from accessing the blocked content. As long as you use a VPN to change your IP address, you should be able to use ChatGPT freely for work and play.
The three choices above — ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark — aren’t the only VPNs that work for ChatGPT, but we hope they help you kick-start your search. As long as you use a reputable VPN service with a no-logs policy and a good security record, you can’t go wrong.
Once you unblock ChatGPT with your new VPN, what will you use it for? Do you have a favorite service we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading!
Also interesting
Most popular on Cloudwards
© 2007-2023 Cloudwards.net – We are a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review. We test each product thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best. We are independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own.
Because the Cloudwards.net team is committed to delivering accurate content, we implemented an additional fact-checking step to our editorial process. Each article that we fact check is analyzed for inaccuracies so that the published content is as accurate as possible.
You can tell that an article is fact checked with the Facts checked by symbol, and you can also see which Cloudwards.net team member personally verified the facts within the article. However, providers frequently change aspects of their services, so if you see an inaccuracy in a fact-checked article, please email us at feedback[at]cloudwards[dot]net. We strive to eventually have every article on the site fact checked. Thank you.
