My friend working in a security firm mentioned that a lot of websites and services like Google talk are banned in his office stating security reasons.

He doesn't use Facebook, Myspace, Twitter etc much, but what irritates him the most is that he can't check his mails using Gmail at his office.

Neither can he chat or connect with his friends using Google Talk. The corporate firewall in his office has blocked everything.

I am sure many among you are in a similar situation. But not to worry. There are simple workarounds to bypass firewalls and gain access to Gmail and Google-Talk. Just make sure you use them carefully though :)

• Google Talk (GTalk) – If you are not allowed to install the GTalk client on your computer, you can use the web based version . Just open this page in your web browser, sign-in with your Gmail user/password and start chatting with friends who are online. There is also an additional feature in the web based version - Group chatting. You can talk to multiple friends simultaneously.
  
  
• Gmail (Google Email) – There are multiple ways to check your Gmail email in the office. The first option is to create a Gmail autoforward filter. Click on "create a filter" link right near the search box in your  Gmail page. Type your email address in the To: box and then use the “Forward it” option to specify an email address that's accessible from office.
  Another option is to use Gmail RSS Feeds. You can add your email feed to any feed reader like Google Reader, Newsgator blog lines or any other reader with the URL https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom. You need to submit your Gmail address and password and all your mails can now be read inside your RSS reader.
• Google Search – If Google.com itself  is blocked in your office, you can use other alternatives like www.jux2.com or www.aftervote.com. They will gather search results from google and show it to you. Another option is to use googlesyndicatedsearch.com which is the same as google.com but on a different server that’s probably not under your corporate firewall's radar.

If you want to completely bypass the firewall and access all websites, you might want to see - How to access blocked websites at office or home