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The YouTube IP Address - Why Some People Want to Know It

Millions of people use YouTube every day. Millions also use popular websites like Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal and other social network sites. Why would you need to know the YouTube IP address, or any of them?

Many workplaces have cracked down on employees spending time surfing the web instead of working by blocking these sites from showing up on work computers. Some workplaces have even had issues with people looking at pornography or objectionable materials on company computers. Finding the IP address of such sites and blocking them is becoming a popular thing for companies to do. When a business fears that productivity is down because employees are spending time on YouTube instead of working on that spreadsheet or report from a meeting, the idea of banning certain IP addresses starts to have some appeal.

To get the YouTube IP address or the address of sites like Facebook or MySpace, they simply go to a site that serves as an IP finder. Putting "IP lookup" or "IP finder" in any search engine will bring up many sites that perform this service. Then entering YouTube.com or whatever the website address might be will return the IP address, which is in the form of a number string like 123.123.12.12.

In the case of huge sites like YouTube, there will often be several of these numbers because there are so many servers required to keep a site like that going. Once the company has this information, they simply block those number ranges through their firewall or other blocking software and the web browser won't be able to send the request for sites assigned those IP numbers. Employees can no longer surf at will.

Parents also often want to block certain sites so that their kids can't use them. Software is available to keep things like pornography and potentially dangerous sites from reaching their children's eyes. Net Nanny and other programs will filter things like this out. But if a parent wants to block a child's access to a site like YouTube or Facebook, there's no need to set up a firewall or use special software because it can be done right through the web browser.

In most web browsers there's an option called Tools which lists things like privacy and security settings, filters, and more. Those will let you block any websites you choose. Simply browse to the site and then open up the security settings to restrict that site from being viewed through the browser. If you decide you want to unblock the site, you simply go back into the settings and remove it. You don't need the YouTube IP address to block YouTube in this way, which makes it an easy option. If you have multiple browsers on your computer, you will want to block it on all of those because it's only blocked through that particular browser software and not the entire system.

About this Author

Dusty Blackwell is an experienced domainer who constantly updates his site so you can Find Domain Names that are perfect for your web properties. Visit http://www.thedomainstar.com where you have access to over 500 premium domain names so you can get the best one for your website.

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