[browser] Accessing Websites through a Different Port?

I am wanting to access a website from a different port than 80 or 8080. Is this possible? I just want to view the website but through a different port. I do not have a router. I know this can be done because I have a browser that accessing websites through different ports, Called XB Browser by Xero Bank.


Thanks for the answers. So, if I setup a proxy on one computer, I could have it go from my computer, to another computer that then returns the website to me. Would this bypass logging software?

This question is related to browser ports

The answer is


No, as the server decides what port it is run on. Perhaps you could install a proxy, which would redirect the port, but in the end the connection would be made on port 80 from your machine.


To clarify earlier answers, the HTTP protocol is 'registered' with port 80, and HTTP over SSL (aka HTTPS) is registered with port 443.

Well known port numbers are documented by IANA.

If you mean "bypass logging software" on the web server, no. It will see the traffic coming from you through the proxy system's IP address, at least. If you're trying to circumvent controls put into place by your IT department, then you need to rethink this. If your IT department blocks traffic to port 80, 8080 or 443 anywhere outbound, there is a reason. Ask your IT director. If you need access to these ports outbound from your local workstation to do your job, make your case with them.

Installing a proxy server, or using a free proxy service, may be a violation of company policies and could put your employment at risk.


It depends.

The web server on the other end will be set to a certain port, usually 80 and will only accept requests on that specific port. Something along the chain will need to be talking to port 80 to the website.

If you control the website, then you can change the port, or get it to accept requests on multiple ports.

If the website is already talking on a different port, you can just use the colon syntax to reference another port (eg: http://server.com:1234 for port 1234).

If you want to use a different port on your client end, but you want to talk to port 80 at the web server end, you'll need to route traffic from port x to port 80. A common way to get this up and running is to use Port Fowarding. ssh can do this for you, see here for a Unix/technical overview or here if you're on Windows.

Hope that helps.


You can only access a website throught the port that is bind with the http server. Example: i hava a web server and it is listening for connections on port 123, the you only can get my pages connecting to my 123 port.


when viewing a website it gets assigned a random port, it will always come from port 80 (usually always, unless the server admin has changed the port) there's no way for someone to change that port unless you have control of the server.


If website server is listening to a different port, then yes, simply use http://address:port/

If server is not listening to a different port, then obviously you cannot.


A simple way is to got to http://websitename.com:174, and you will be entering through a different port.


You can only access a website throught the port that is bind with the http server. Example: i hava a web server and it is listening for connections on port 123, the you only can get my pages connecting to my 123 port.


You can use ssh to forward ports onto somewhere else.

If you have two computers, one you browse from, and one which is free to access websites, and is not logged (ie. you own it and it's sitting at home), then you can set up a tunnel between them to forward http traffic over.

For example, I connect to my home computer from work using ssh, with port forwarding, like this:

ssh -L 22222:<target_website>:80 <home_computer>

Then I can point my browser to

http://localhost:22222/

And this request will be forwarded over ssh. Since the work computer is first contacting the home computer, and then contacting the target website, it will be hard to log.

However, this is all getting into 'how to bypass web proxies' and the like, and I suggest you create a new question asking what exactly you want to do.

Ie. "How do I bypass web proxies to avoid my traffic being logged?"


when viewing a website it gets assigned a random port, it will always come from port 80 (usually always, unless the server admin has changed the port) there's no way for someone to change that port unless you have control of the server.


Unless you're browsing through a proxy, the web servers hosting the sites you want to access must be configured to listen to a port other than 80 or 8080.


To clarify earlier answers, the HTTP protocol is 'registered' with port 80, and HTTP over SSL (aka HTTPS) is registered with port 443.

Well known port numbers are documented by IANA.

If you mean "bypass logging software" on the web server, no. It will see the traffic coming from you through the proxy system's IP address, at least. If you're trying to circumvent controls put into place by your IT department, then you need to rethink this. If your IT department blocks traffic to port 80, 8080 or 443 anywhere outbound, there is a reason. Ask your IT director. If you need access to these ports outbound from your local workstation to do your job, make your case with them.

Installing a proxy server, or using a free proxy service, may be a violation of company policies and could put your employment at risk.


Unless you're browsing through a proxy, the web servers hosting the sites you want to access must be configured to listen to a port other than 80 or 8080.


It depends.

The web server on the other end will be set to a certain port, usually 80 and will only accept requests on that specific port. Something along the chain will need to be talking to port 80 to the website.

If you control the website, then you can change the port, or get it to accept requests on multiple ports.

If the website is already talking on a different port, you can just use the colon syntax to reference another port (eg: http://server.com:1234 for port 1234).

If you want to use a different port on your client end, but you want to talk to port 80 at the web server end, you'll need to route traffic from port x to port 80. A common way to get this up and running is to use Port Fowarding. ssh can do this for you, see here for a Unix/technical overview or here if you're on Windows.

Hope that helps.


Perhaps this is obvious, but FWIW this will only work if the web server is serving requests for that website on the alternate port. It's not at all uncommon for a webserver to only serve a site on port 80.


No, as the server decides what port it is run on. Perhaps you could install a proxy, which would redirect the port, but in the end the connection would be made on port 80 from your machine.


when viewing a website it gets assigned a random port, it will always come from port 80 (usually always, unless the server admin has changed the port) there's no way for someone to change that port unless you have control of the server.


You can use ssh to forward ports onto somewhere else.

If you have two computers, one you browse from, and one which is free to access websites, and is not logged (ie. you own it and it's sitting at home), then you can set up a tunnel between them to forward http traffic over.

For example, I connect to my home computer from work using ssh, with port forwarding, like this:

ssh -L 22222:<target_website>:80 <home_computer>

Then I can point my browser to

http://localhost:22222/

And this request will be forwarded over ssh. Since the work computer is first contacting the home computer, and then contacting the target website, it will be hard to log.

However, this is all getting into 'how to bypass web proxies' and the like, and I suggest you create a new question asking what exactly you want to do.

Ie. "How do I bypass web proxies to avoid my traffic being logged?"


You can run the web server on any port. 80 is just convention as are 8080 (web server on unprivileged port) and 443 (web server + ssl). However if you're looking to see some web site by pointing your browser to a different port you're probably out of luck. Unless the web server is being run on that port explicitly you'll just get an error message.


If website server is listening to a different port, then yes, simply use http://address:port/

If server is not listening to a different port, then obviously you cannot.


A simple way is to got to http://websitename.com:174, and you will be entering through a different port.


when viewing a website it gets assigned a random port, it will always come from port 80 (usually always, unless the server admin has changed the port) there's no way for someone to change that port unless you have control of the server.


No, as the server decides what port it is run on. Perhaps you could install a proxy, which would redirect the port, but in the end the connection would be made on port 80 from your machine.


Unless you're browsing through a proxy, the web servers hosting the sites you want to access must be configured to listen to a port other than 80 or 8080.


To clarify earlier answers, the HTTP protocol is 'registered' with port 80, and HTTP over SSL (aka HTTPS) is registered with port 443.

Well known port numbers are documented by IANA.

If you mean "bypass logging software" on the web server, no. It will see the traffic coming from you through the proxy system's IP address, at least. If you're trying to circumvent controls put into place by your IT department, then you need to rethink this. If your IT department blocks traffic to port 80, 8080 or 443 anywhere outbound, there is a reason. Ask your IT director. If you need access to these ports outbound from your local workstation to do your job, make your case with them.

Installing a proxy server, or using a free proxy service, may be a violation of company policies and could put your employment at risk.


You can run the web server on any port. 80 is just convention as are 8080 (web server on unprivileged port) and 443 (web server + ssl). However if you're looking to see some web site by pointing your browser to a different port you're probably out of luck. Unless the web server is being run on that port explicitly you'll just get an error message.


It depends.

The web server on the other end will be set to a certain port, usually 80 and will only accept requests on that specific port. Something along the chain will need to be talking to port 80 to the website.

If you control the website, then you can change the port, or get it to accept requests on multiple ports.

If the website is already talking on a different port, you can just use the colon syntax to reference another port (eg: http://server.com:1234 for port 1234).

If you want to use a different port on your client end, but you want to talk to port 80 at the web server end, you'll need to route traffic from port x to port 80. A common way to get this up and running is to use Port Fowarding. ssh can do this for you, see here for a Unix/technical overview or here if you're on Windows.

Hope that helps.


To clarify earlier answers, the HTTP protocol is 'registered' with port 80, and HTTP over SSL (aka HTTPS) is registered with port 443.

Well known port numbers are documented by IANA.

If you mean "bypass logging software" on the web server, no. It will see the traffic coming from you through the proxy system's IP address, at least. If you're trying to circumvent controls put into place by your IT department, then you need to rethink this. If your IT department blocks traffic to port 80, 8080 or 443 anywhere outbound, there is a reason. Ask your IT director. If you need access to these ports outbound from your local workstation to do your job, make your case with them.

Installing a proxy server, or using a free proxy service, may be a violation of company policies and could put your employment at risk.


You can use ssh to forward ports onto somewhere else.

If you have two computers, one you browse from, and one which is free to access websites, and is not logged (ie. you own it and it's sitting at home), then you can set up a tunnel between them to forward http traffic over.

For example, I connect to my home computer from work using ssh, with port forwarding, like this:

ssh -L 22222:<target_website>:80 <home_computer>

Then I can point my browser to

http://localhost:22222/

And this request will be forwarded over ssh. Since the work computer is first contacting the home computer, and then contacting the target website, it will be hard to log.

However, this is all getting into 'how to bypass web proxies' and the like, and I suggest you create a new question asking what exactly you want to do.

Ie. "How do I bypass web proxies to avoid my traffic being logged?"


No, as the server decides what port it is run on. Perhaps you could install a proxy, which would redirect the port, but in the end the connection would be made on port 80 from your machine.


If website server is listening to a different port, then yes, simply use http://address:port/

If server is not listening to a different port, then obviously you cannot.


Perhaps this is obvious, but FWIW this will only work if the web server is serving requests for that website on the alternate port. It's not at all uncommon for a webserver to only serve a site on port 80.


You can only access a website throught the port that is bind with the http server. Example: i hava a web server and it is listening for connections on port 123, the you only can get my pages connecting to my 123 port.


If website server is listening to a different port, then yes, simply use http://address:port/

If server is not listening to a different port, then obviously you cannot.


Perhaps this is obvious, but FWIW this will only work if the web server is serving requests for that website on the alternate port. It's not at all uncommon for a webserver to only serve a site on port 80.


You can use ssh to forward ports onto somewhere else.

If you have two computers, one you browse from, and one which is free to access websites, and is not logged (ie. you own it and it's sitting at home), then you can set up a tunnel between them to forward http traffic over.

For example, I connect to my home computer from work using ssh, with port forwarding, like this:

ssh -L 22222:<target_website>:80 <home_computer>

Then I can point my browser to

http://localhost:22222/

And this request will be forwarded over ssh. Since the work computer is first contacting the home computer, and then contacting the target website, it will be hard to log.

However, this is all getting into 'how to bypass web proxies' and the like, and I suggest you create a new question asking what exactly you want to do.

Ie. "How do I bypass web proxies to avoid my traffic being logged?"


It depends.

The web server on the other end will be set to a certain port, usually 80 and will only accept requests on that specific port. Something along the chain will need to be talking to port 80 to the website.

If you control the website, then you can change the port, or get it to accept requests on multiple ports.

If the website is already talking on a different port, you can just use the colon syntax to reference another port (eg: http://server.com:1234 for port 1234).

If you want to use a different port on your client end, but you want to talk to port 80 at the web server end, you'll need to route traffic from port x to port 80. A common way to get this up and running is to use Port Fowarding. ssh can do this for you, see here for a Unix/technical overview or here if you're on Windows.

Hope that helps.