How can proxies be used in PHP to bypass network restrictions and access blocked websites?

Network restrictions can be bypassed by using proxies in PHP to access blocked websites. Proxies act as intermediaries between the user's device and the internet, allowing them to access restricted content by routing their requests through a different server. This can be achieved by configuring PHP to send HTTP requests through a proxy server, which then forwards the request to the desired website.

$proxy = 'proxy.example.com:8080';
$proxyAuth = 'username:password';

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'http://blockedwebsite.com');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXYUSERPWD, $proxyAuth);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

echo $response;