At times in offices and colleges, you find that gmail has been blocked for users using proxy or some other way. Here ar some ways in which you can access the blocked gmail account. This also worked for me.
1) Rather then using the url www.gmail.com you can try some of these web addresses which are not widely popular and hence have not been blocked by system admins.
* http://m.gmail.com
* https://gmail.com
* http://google.com/mail
* http://mail.google.com or https://mail.google.com
* http://googlemail.com
2) Access blocked gmail using igoogle. Gmail is available as a gadget in igoogle. Igoogle is much similar to my yahoo where all the yahoo apps are shown in one place.
When you access GMail through iGoogle all the communication with the GMail servers is routed through iGoogle servers. So this defeats all the restriction and filters applied by IT administrators in blocking gmail.com domain.
To access GMail through iGoogle
1. Login to iGoogle using your Google Account
2. Add GMail gadget to iGoogle by following this link or by using Add Stuff on screen
3. That’s all. Start accessing your GMail inside iGoogle.
3) Access GMail Using Opera Mini Simulator
Access_Blocked_GMail_Using_Opera_Mini Use Opera Mini Browser Online Simulator application to access GMail in a small screen window. Opera Mini is a popular web browser for mobile phones. It allows users to work with live demo of Opera Mini that functions exactly like it would when installed on a handset.
Point your browser to http://www.operamini.com/demo/ and start accessing blocked GMail using the URL m.gmail.com.
Reading mails on mobile simulator is definitely not convenient as reading them on a full screen browser computer. But when you need to access your GMail urgently, This trick might be helpful to you.
4) Use Microsoft Outlook Or Other Mail Programs To Access GMail Using POP3/IMAP
Configure your mail clients like Outlook, Live Mail, Lotus Notes to access GMail using POP3 or IMAP protocol. This trick of accessing GMail when blocked is mostly useful for working professionals as they should be definitely using some mail client for official mail access.
You can find the instruction to configure POP3(http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12103) and IMAP (http://mail.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=12806)
5) Launch GMail from Google Talk
At few organizations they block access to GMail but not to Google Talk. If that is the case at your organization, then you can launch GMail from Google Talk application. Sign in to GTalk and click on the envelope icon to launch access GMail.
6) You can also use smart phones to access gmail.
7) You can try some proxy site though I doubt it will work well with gmail.