How can one update Pear if they are unable to bypass a firewall?

If you are unable to bypass a firewall to update Pear, you can try using a proxy server to access the Pear repository. By configuring Pear to use a proxy server, you can bypass the firewall restrictions and successfully update Pear.

// Set up proxy server for Pear
$proxy = 'http://proxy.example.com:8080';
exec("pear config-set http_proxy $proxy");