Jun 12 2005
Free Web Surfing @ Best Buy
Seems like everywhere you go, there’s internet access available. For example, Best Buy provides terminals throughout their stores (mostly in the computers department) from which you can access their website. They’ve thoughtfully made said website (or at least the version that the kiosks access) completely devoid of outside links, and the embedded IE browser used has neither address bar nor navigation buttons. But there are no other impediments to unrestricted web browsing, so all you need to do is find a way out of their website. Here is one method for doing so. Once you’re out, you can visit any website on Best Buy’s dime. Obviously the standard disclaimers apply: don’t use this for evil, and don’t do anything that’s traceable back to you. So without further ado:
1. Find a suitable Best Buy kiosk. At present, this is the ones that show a blue animation and have rows of buttons at the bottom. Click on the bestbuy.com button. Or just ask an employee where you can view the website, since that’s a common request.
2. On bestbuy.com, scroll to the bottom of the page. Under the “Product Services” heading there’s a link for Replacement Parts. Hit it. At this point you’ll probably have to hit a button that says “Click here to purchase parts & accessories” and another that says “Go to Partner site” to get to the Partsearch site.
3. Click on the “Powered by Partsearch” logo at the bottom right to visit the Partsearch corporate home page.
4. Under “Retail Customers” in the center of the page press the “More…” link.
5. Click on the Amazon.com logo in the list to be taken there.
6. In the A9 Web Search bar at the top right of the Amazon front page, type your search term. You can stop here and use A9 to navigate the web, but we’re going to go one step further. Type “google” in the search box, hit Go, and click the result link that comes up. Voila — Google.
7. You can get to literally any URL through Google. Just type the URL in as a search term. If the page you specify is in Google’s database it’ll produce a result link; otherwise it’ll produce a link to the URL with something like “if the URL is valid try clicking the link.”
8. Enjoy! Somehow I imagine that, even if you’re caught doing this, the average Best Buy employee is not going to notice or care. Just watch out for management, and above all, don’t be stupid.