Right now, the Ethiopian people are under another online blackout targeting the most popular social media websites. The government’s censorship is intended to stifle free speech, cut off means of communication, and prevent protests.

These blocks coincided with the World Day Against Cyber Censorship on March 12, when activists around the world recognize the harmful effects of authoritarian meddling with a free internet. As we wrote for that occasion on our blog, “fighting the censors deployed by authoritarian regimes is a cat-and-mouse game.” But it’s one that Proton VPN has been fighting since 2017, and we will continue to do so. 

The latest censorship efforts in Ethiopia are a case study in how technology can be deployed in the name of freedom and highlights how Proton VPN and our community of supporters have been on the front lines of this global struggle.

• What’s happening in Ethiopia
• Why censorship in Ethiopia matters
• How we’re helping in Ethiopia
• How you can help

What’s happening in Ethiopia

All of Ethiopia is served by a single internet service provider (ISP) called Ethio Telecom, which is owned by the state. Because of its monopoly position, if you want to connect to the internet in Ethiopia, you must do so through Ethio Telecom.

Historically, the government in power has used this information bottleneck for political purposes, often under the pretense of fighting misinformation. While misinformation is indeed common in Ethiopia, the censorship has often targeted opposition news sources or websites operated by Ethiopian dissidents abroad. (Freedom House’s 2022 net freedom report on Ethiopia is a comprehensive resource on this issue.)

The latest blocks arose after a controversy in Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church in which a group of archbishops split from the church over ethnic grievances. When clashing church leaders began calling for nationwide protests and counter-protests, the government ordered Ethio Telecom to block certain social media sites. 

Starting on February 9, 2023, the government began blocking access to a handful of social media websites, including Facebook, Telegram, TikTok, and YouTube. The results were instant and indiscriminate. Not only could protesters no longer organize, but regular internet users could no longer access their profiles, communicate with friends and family, or even look up news and entertainment videos on some of the world’s most popular websites. 

Why censorship in Ethiopia matters

Even if you don’t live in Ethiopia, attacks on the free flow of information are a global problem that affect everyone. As the mass exodus of refugees in the first part of this century shows, repression anywhere can become a problem everywhere.

When Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, there were high hopes for his leadership, and he even won the Nobel Peace Prize in part for loosening the country’s tight grip on media and freeing journalists from prison. But beginning in 2020, that started to change.

“I thought it would be another era and that democracy and freedom of speech may be restored,” one journalist told Reuters, “but actually things are deteriorating, so many journalists have fled the country and some are in jail.”

In the big picture, censorship in Ethiopia helps to undermine the promise of the internet as a free and open platform for all. From China’s Great Firewall to Silicon Valley’s walled gardens, those in power have an interest in partitioning the internet into walled arenas to enrich themselves or consolidate control.

Proton categorically rejects this vision of a divided internet. And the work we do, enabled by our community, has a direct impact, helping people break down online barriers meant to contain them.

How we’re helping in Ethiopia

Ethiopia uses a few methods to block websites. According to Freedom House, the government uses DNS filtering, IP address blocking, and sometimes deep packet inspection.

Fortunately there are ways to get around the blocks currently in place.

With a VPN, instead of connecting directly to the blocked website, you first establish an encrypted connection with a server in another country operated by your VPN provider. After establishing your VPN connection, you can then use the internet normally.

As the diagram above shows, the VPN encrypts your internet traffic between your device and the VPN server. The VPN server acts as an intermediary connecting you to the websites or apps you want to visit. The ISP can only see that you have connected to a foreign server.

Sometimes ISPs may try to block suspected VPN servers. If that happens, you can simply switch to a different VPN server. Most VPN providers offer hundreds of servers to choose from. 

And in case you’re wondering, VPNs are legal in Ethiopia.

Often, existing tools are not enough. As we mentioned earlier: It’s a cat-and-mouse game. Whenever we develop a tool to defeat censorship, the government or ISP begins working on ways to cut them off. (The New York Times recently profiled our work fighting against Russian censors.)

To that end, Proton VPN offers unique anti-censorship features that may be helpful in the context of government blocks:

Alternative routing

In some cases, governments have tried to enforce their censorship regimes by blocking VPN websites. To avoid this, Proton VPN apps automatically find alternative connections that are unlikely to be blocked.

Smart protocol

Another censorship tactic is to block certain protocols used by VPNs. Our apps for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS support multiple VPN protocols and automatically switch to a different protocol if one is blocked. 

Stealth

We have also developed a unique protocol called Stealth which is designed to make your VPN connection appear like normal internet traffic and more resistant to blocks.

How you can help

When the government began censoring the social media sites in February, we witnessed a rapid uptick in the number of connetions to Proton VPN from Ethiopia. The graph below shows the percentage increase in connections above normal levels. Connections to our servers grew by nearly 4,000% after the blocks took effect.

Proton VPN is free to use and offers unlimited data with no artificial bandwidth restrictions. The reason for this is simple: Our mission is to create an internet where privacy and freedom are accessible to all — not just to those who can afford it.

For those who can afford to pay, we also offer Plus and Unlimited plans to those who want extra features and more servers to choose from. By upgrading, you are directly helping people such as those in Ethiopia connect to the uncensored web and communicate freely, even in cases when they can’t afford to pay.

The post The Proton community is fighting censorship in Ethiopia appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

But the problem is also widespread. A record 35 countries blocked access to the internet in 2022, according to Access Now. Many of these countries, like Myanmar and Iran, are run by authoritarian leaders, but the worst offender in 2022 was India, the world’s most populous democracy. It imposed over 80 internet blackouts, most of which affected the contested regions of Kashmir and Jammu. 

This being said, there are some glimmers of hope: According to Freedom House, 26 countries saw their internet freedom improve, including the United States, which is still one of the most influential online spaces globally. There’s also been a broader push by everyday people worldwide to fight back against internet censorship. People everywhere are fighting to restore access to the open internet, either in the courts or by downloading and using VPNs to bypass the blocks. 

For this year’s World Day Against Cyber Censorship, we’ll look at how fighting for a free and open internet is integral to Proton VPN and the future of censorship.

We built Proton VPN to fight censorship

We launched Proton VPN in 2017, roughly three years after we launched our end-to-end encrypted email service, Proton Mail. We launched Proton Mail in response to the Snowden revelations that exposed a global system of mass surveillance. As an end-to-end encrypted email service that could protect people’s messages, Proton Mail became popular with journalists worldwide who used it to communicate with their sources. In many places with authoritarian governments, Proton Mail ended up getting blocked. This gave us the idea to launch Proton VPN. 

Authoritarian governments, including Turkey, Russia, and Belarus, still occasionally attempt to block Proton Mail, but Proton VPN makes it much more difficult. Since 2017, Proton VPN has grown to help millions of people all around the world access crucial information, stay in touch with friends and family, and express themselves in the face of online censorship. 

We view the freedom of expression and the freedom of information as vital human rights, and we’ve worked with anti-censorship organizations worldwide to fight for a free and open internet. This effort has been led by the Proton community. Thanks to your support, we’ve been able to donate to vital anti-censorship technologies, including:

• WireGuard
• Tails
• Tor

You’ve also enabled us to work with organizations that provide vital support to journalists and fight censorship in all its forms, including:

• Sponsoring a Reporters Without Borders (RSF) journalist digital security program
• Partnering with RSF
• Leading a training session with the Second Asian Investigative Journalism Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal
• Partnering with Deutsche Welle
• Supporting Access Now
• Supporting Netblocks

None of this would have been possible without the support and generosity of the Proton community. Every person that subscribes to a paid plan helps fund our work that is providing vital internet access. It’s thanks to you that we have been able to stand up for online freedoms in Hong Kong, Russia, and other authoritarian countries. 

We hope every member of the Proton community is proud of the work they’ve enabled.

You’re enabling online freedom

People have learned that Proton VPN is an effective way of accessing the uncensored internet, and we have become a lifeline for those in need. 

VPNs, in general, are effective tools for bypassing online censorship because they allow people to shield their browsing habits from their internet service provider (ISP). Typically, when a government wants to censor specific websites or social media, it instructs the national ISPs to block connections to those sites. When you connect to a VPN, your connection is encrypted, and the ISP can’t see what website you’re visiting. It can only sees that you’re connected to a VPN server. The VPN then handles your connection, allowing you to safely access the uncensored web. 

Proton VPN goes beyond standard VPNs with our complement of anti-censorship features, all of which are available with our Free plan:

• Stealth — A WireGuard-based VPN protocol that obfuscates your VPN traffic and makes it look like normal HTTPS internet traffic, making it hard to detect and block. 
• Smart Protocol  — This feature automatically detects censorship attempts and selects the best VPN protocol to help you bypass the block. 
• Alternative routing —This feature automatically detects attempts to block your connection to our service and bypasses them by rerouting your connection over third-party services, like AWS. 

The Proton community’s support also has allowed us to provide the best free VPN service available. Our Proton VPN Free plan has no data limits, no artificial connection speed limits, no ads, and keeps no logs, making it the perfect tool for those in dire need. 

Resisting the next wave of censorship

Unfortunately, fighting the censors deployed by authoritarian regimes is a cat-and-mouse game. We develop a new VPN protocol, the censors work on fine-tuning their deep packet inspection tools to detect it. But it seems like we’re rapidly approaching an inflection point. 

Despite the persistent and pervasive online censorship, the internet is still mostly global. Only China has been effective at cutting nearly all ties between its internet and the global internet. But there’s evidence that other countries might attempt to replicate its model. Russia has been experimenting with creating its own “splinternet” for years, and the invasion of Ukraine might be what finally launches it. And according to Freedom House, there’s evidence that Belarus, Cuba, India, Iran, Rwanda, and Singapore have taken steps toward detaching their internet from the rest of the globe’s as well. 

This would represent a new phase in online censorship that we all need to resist. But as long as governments use censorship to try to control their citizens, the Proton community will be ready to fight back.

At Proton, our goal is to give everyone privacy and security online, so join us. Together, we can build a better internet where privacy is the default.

The post The fight against censorship has never been more important appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Banks, in general, do a good job securing their apps and banking portals. You are much more likely to fall victim to a phishing scam or a malicious link than you are to have your banking account hacked (assuming you use a strong password and two-factor authentication, but more on that later). Still, a trustworthy VPN can add an extra layer of security to your online banking and even make it easier to access your banking app.

How secure is online banking?

The vast majority of websites use hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS). As the name suggests, this is a more secure version of the hypertext transfer protocol used to send data between your browser and a website. HTTPS uses TLS encryption to prevent your internet provider and anyone else on your network from interfering with your connection or seeing what you type or click on a website (although they still can see which website you visit). You can verify your connection is protected by HTTPS by looking for a padlock in your browser’s URL bar.

This means that as long as you are certain you are connected to your bank’s website or app, you can be relatively certain that you can go about your banking business securely.

How can a VPN help secure your banking?

Your VPN can provide additional protection to your online banking that HTTPS cannot. It can also help you access your banking app under certain conditions. 

Prevent DNS poisoning on public WiFi

When you connect to a website, you type in that website’s URL, such as https://protonvpn.com. But computers don’t actually use URLs; they use IP addresses, such as 185.159.159.140. The internet uses the domain name system (DNS) to link a URL to the correct IP address. Special DNS servers, operated by your ISP or network administrator, handle these DNS requests.

DNS poisoning or DNS spoofing is when an attacker intercepts your browser’s DNS requests and sends back their own spoofed response. Typically, the attacker will send you to a website that looks exactly like the one they are spoofing, but because it is under their control, they can see any information you enter, including your username and password. 

DNS poisoning is possible because DNS requests are not encrypted by TLS by default. Public WiFi hotspots typically do not have the same safeguards as larger ISPs and thus are easier targets for DNS poisoning.

However, if you use Proton VPN, we encrypt all of your internet traffic, including your DNS requests. We also process your encrypted DNS requests on DNS servers that we operate ourselves. This prevents DNS spoofing.

Obscure which bank you use on public WiFi

If you connect to a WiFi hotspot at an airport, restaurant, or stadium, HTTPS will prevent attacks from interfering with your connection or seeing your activity on a website, but it won’t stop them from seeing what website you are on. They could see the bank you use via their website and use this information to craft more believable phishing attacks. 

However, if you use Proton VPN, your connection will be encrypted and routed through one of our VPN servers before you connect to your bank’s website. Anyone else on the public hotspot will see the IP address of the VPN server but not which website or app you are using.

Access your banking app while you are traveling

If you try to use your banking app while traveling, you may have your attempt flagged as suspicious or even be denied access. Most banking sites don’t expect login attempts from IP addresses outside your home country.

Proton VPN can help you get around this geoblocking. When you use Proton VPN, the websites you connect to cannot see the IP address of the device you are using. They can only see the IP address of the VPN server you are connected to. If you connect to a VPN server in your home country, that’s where your banking app will think you are. 

Note: Some banking apps will also deny you access if your IP address does not originate from the same country where you recently made purchases. We recommend trying to access your banking app on a secure WiFi network without a VPN first. Then, if you are being geoblocked, connect to a VPN server in your home country and try again.

Only use a trustworthy VPN

When you connect to a VPN, it essentially replaces your ISP. It handles your internet connection, meaning it can see which websites you visit. Given its ability to monitor your connection, using an untrustworthy VPN can be worse than using no VPN at all.

Proton VPN is maintained by the same team of scientists who created Proton Mail, the world’s most popular encrypted email service. All Proton VPN apps are open source, meaning you can go and check their code to ensure they do exactly what we claim. We recently had our no-logs policy confirmed by independent experts. Their report verifies we do not log your browsing history, IP address, or any other identifying metadata. 

Sign up for Proton VPN for free today to give it a try.

How to make your online banking even more secure

Using a trustworthy VPN will make it safer for you to do your banking online. But there are several other simple steps that you can take to ensure your online banking is as secure as possible. 

Use a strong password

Your password is the first line of defense for any of your online accounts. Using a strong, unique password or passphrase will make it harder for attackers to guess or bruteforce your password and get access to your banking account. We recommend a passphrase of four or five words that you do not use anywhere else.

Learn more about creating strong passphrases

Use a password manager

A password manager generates and stores passwords for all your accounts, allowing you to use more complex passwords than you could if you needed to memorize them. You only need to memorize a single master password that lets you log in to your password manager. 

Most password managers also have an autofill feature that selects the correct password for the website you are visiting. If the password manager does not autofill your password into the blanks, this is a good sign that you are on a phishing website.

Find an open-source password manager to use

Enable two-factor authentication

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an extra layer of protection for your online accounts, typically in the form of a time-based, one-time code provided by an app on your phone. If you enable 2FA, even if an attacker manages to get a hold of your username and password, they still will not be able to access your banking account unless they can also provide the 2FA code. Nearly every banking website should offer 2FA. 

Learn more about using 2FA

Type the website address yourself

This is an old-school trick, but it is still effective. It is very easy to hide malicious URLs in hyperlinks, and even if you inspect the link before you click it, it can be difficult to verify where a shortened URL will lead. If you are led to a phishing website under the control of an attacker, not even TLS or a VPN can protect you. However, you can remove this risk by simply typing in the URL of your bank’s website yourself.

The post How to secure online banking with a VPN appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

What is internet censorship?
Where does censorship happen?
What is censored?
Internet censorship examples from 2021
Internet censorship around the world
What countries have no internet censorship?
How does internet censorship work?
The best way to defeat censorship online

What is internet censorship?

Simply put, internet censorship is the control or suppression of what content can be published, communicated, or accessed on the internet. 

Where does censorship happen?

Censorship can be applied at any of several points when you are browsing the internet. Anytime you try to access a website, your internet traffic will be handled by your:

• Device (e.g., your smartphone, your work laptop, etc.)
• Local network (e.g., your home WiFi, your work WiFi, etc.)
• Internet service provider (ISP)
• Search engine of choice

This is not a complete list of all the places censorship can be applied, but it represents the most common examples enforced by governments.

Censors can place blocks on content at any one of these steps.

• Blocks on your device: Software can be installed on a device that enforces blocks locally on your device. This can include parental controls, network security software, or malware.
• Blocks on your local network: The person running your local network can implement blocks as well. You typically see these types of blocks on university or workplace WiFi networks.
• Blocks at the ISP and national level: An ISP connects your device to the rest of the internet, meaning it has broad power to block specific websites or the entire internet. A government can force ISPs to carry out censorship for it, effectively blocking the censored content for everyone in that country. 
• Blocks implemented by search engines: Since many people rely on search engines to find the content they are looking for, governments can also require these search engines to block certain queries or only return government-approved results.

What is censored?

This depends entirely on who is applying the censorship. You might apply child controls on your child’s phone to block pornography, your work WiFi might block torrenting services, and your national ISP might block access to foreign websites that are suspected of propaganda. 

Other common targets for censorship include news organizations, social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, or messaging services, like WhatsApp or Telegram, as they provide quick, efficient ways to spread information and organize.

This post focuses on the government censorship of the internet at the national/ISP level because it is the most impactful in terms of the number of people affected. 

Internet censorship examples from 2021

Censorship takes many different forms and can be implemented briefly or turned into a durable, lasting condition of the internet. Examples of the different types and levels of censorship from 2021 include:

• China’s Great Firewall, which was established in the mid-2000s, blocks access to thousands of western websites. It has steadily been increasing its censorship, blocking all language versions of Wikipedia since 2019. The Chinese government also exercises tight control of its national internet to swiftly delete posts that are critical of Xi Jinping or the Chinese Communist Party. 
• In January, in the run-up to national elections (a pretext many regimes use to censor the internet), the Ugandan government ordered the national internet provider to shut down internet access entirely throughout the country. Ugandans were without internet for a little over five days.
• During mass protests in July, the Cuban government blocked access to several social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram, for two days. 

The last example is the most representative of most internet censorship. Building an entirely separate national internet is expensive and difficult to maintain, and shutting down a country’s internet entirely, even for a short time, can lead to massive economic losses. Comparatively speaking, it is easier to block news articles that are critical of the government and prevent people from organizing on social media technically and politically. Fortunately, these types of blocks can be defeated.

Internet censorship around the world 

According to Freedom House’s 2021 assessment of Freedom on the Net (FOTN), internet freedom has declined for the 11th straight year. 

This decline has been largely driven by governments’ abuse of problematic regulations that allow them to remove critical or unflattering content. This is expected from authoritarian countries like China, Iran, and Myanmar (which occupy the bottom three rankings in the FOTN report), but this type of online censorship is also becoming more common in democracies like India and Indonesia. 

What countries have no internet censorship?

According to the 2021 FOTN report, the four countries with the highest freedom scores are:

• Iceland
• Estonia
• Canada
• Costa Rica

While this doesn’t mean that these countries have no censorship, they all have strong records of protecting freedom of speech and expression on the internet and generally try to make the internet as accessible as possible.

How does internet censorship work?

Internet censorship is usually implemented through one of the following methods. We briefly explain how they work and how you can bypass them. 

Domain Name System (DNS) filtering and redirection

Your DNS queries are resolved by DNS servers operated by your ISP by default. This means your ISP can refuse to resolve requests for domains hosting censored content on their DNS servers, making the site non-accessible to browsers and causing them to return an incorrect IP address.

Internet Protocol (IP) address blocking

IP address blocking is a fairly simple way of censoring specific websites or platforms. First, the censor creates a list of the IP addresses or TCP/IP port numbers of all the websites to be blocked. Then, as browsers request to reach a website, the ISP will check each request against the list. If there is a match, the ISP will drop the connection. 

Any websites on the same shared hosting server will share the same IP address and also be blocked as collateral damage. IP address blocking is the most common way to geo-block copyrighted content, like music or movies. 

By blocking certain TCP/IP ports, censors can even block applications by their type of traffic. This is a common way to block VPNs.

Search engine blocks

Search engines have immense power to shape web traffic, which is why governments often threaten to block their service unless they agree to filter out objectionable content. Since this type of censorship relies on the cooperation of the search engine operator, it can only be enacted by national governments. Government censors will define what content is objectionable and must be removed from search results. Safe Search on Google is an example of a search filter, though its purpose is to block inappropriate material from children.

Deep packet inspection (DPI)

DPI is an advanced form of censorship used by certain states with strict internet controls. It works by inspecting the metadata of packets sent between servers to determine what type of traffic is being transferred. Authorities can then log, re-route, or block that traffic based on what they find. This is one of the few methods effective at blocking encrypted traffic. Sophisticated firewalls using DPI (such as the Great Firewall of China) can even detect and block VPN or Tor traffic.

The best way to defeat online censorship

Proton VPN is the best way to defeat the most popular types of online censorship. 

A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and the VPN server. Your internet traffic, including your DNS queries, is then routed through the VPN server and not traceable back to you. This prevents your ISP from seeing which websites you are trying to access and prevents it from applying any blocks. You can then connect to a server in another country (like the countries with high FOTN scores) where that content or service is not blocked. 

This will let you defeat:

• DNS filtering
• IP address blocking
• URL filtering
• Search engine blocks

Proton VPN is a better option than other VPNs because: 

• We have developed advanced features that allow Proton VPN to bypass attempts to block or censor VPN services themselves.
• We provide a free VPN with no logs, no ads, no data limits, and no speed limits.
• We are based in Switzerland and subject to strong Swiss data privacy laws.
• We are a transparent, trustworthy VPN service run by the creators of Proton Mail, the world’s largest encrypted email service.

Learn why Proton VPN is the best option to defeat censorship

Other solutions to censorship

If you know you are facing DNS filtering, you can simply switch who handles your DNS queries. Quad9 is a popular DNS provider that can help you bypass blocks. While you will need to reconfigure your operating system to use a new DNS provider, Quad9 offers a thorough setup guide.

To defeat advanced censorship, you can turn to the open-source software Tor. The Tor browser encrypts your internet connection and routes it through different Tor servers (called nodes) on the Tor anonymity network. The website will only see the IP address of the last Tor server pinged and not the IP address of your device. Tor can be slow and cumbersome to work with, but it remains an excellent option for anyone trying to access censored sites or anonymize their web activity.

If even Tor fails because your ISP is blocking access to known Tor nodes, you can use a Tor bridge with a pluggable transport. A Tor bridge is a Tor node that is not listed in the main Tor directory. Since bridges are unknown, an ISP cannot block their IP addresses. However, if a government used DPI, it would be able to find the Tor bridge. To prevent this, you can add a pluggable transport to your connection. A pluggable transport transforms your Tor traffic into something more innocent or random looking, like regular HTTPS traffic. 

Learn how to use Tor bridges and pluggable transports 

Tools like Proton VPN and Tor play an important role in keeping the internet free and open and help you stay one step ahead of those that would deny you access to information. As the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko said, “When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.” We hope you use these tools to fight through the silence and find the truth.

The post What is internet censorship, and how does it work? appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Dating apps are now as much a part of modern courtship as going to the movies or buying flowers. But dating apps like Tinder, Grindr, or Bumble, present significant privacy risks. This Valentine’s Day, take some time to protect your privacy on dating apps. 

Online dating is a privacy nightmare because it’s a Catch-22. You are obviously looking to entice someone and therefore want to create a level of intimacy, but you are speaking with someone you have never met. It requires a delicate dance of revealing enough information about yourself to beguile without sharing too much. And you need to accept information from people on the other end of your conversation, hoping they are acting in good faith. 

Scammers know this. They have begun hacking these apps or using social engineering to access people’s most sensitive photos or to trick people into sending payments. According to the US Federal Trade Commission, romance scams have been increasing steadily, and over $547 million was lost to these scams in 2021.

Beyond scammers, many of these dating apps use the data you give them to target you with ads. When you consider that hundreds of millions of people use dating apps around the world to meet new people, there is a lot of data to be mined. Furthermore, many dating apps have been less-than-responsible stewards of the data entrusted to them.

But don’t give up on love! (It is Valentine’s Day, after all.) There are ways to limit your exposure online.

What data do dating apps have?

Most dating apps use the data they collect from you to target you with ads. That’s how they can continue operating while offering their service for free. (It’s also why you often can get access to stronger privacy controls if you pay for a subscription to a dating app.) 

When you consider the types of sensitive information many of these apps require you to share when you create an account, this data collection can be concerning. As an example, before you can use Tinder, you must share:

• Your phone number or Google or Apple account
• Your first name
• Your date of birth
• Two photos of you
• Your location by turning on location tracking on your phone
• Your sexual orientation

And nearly all dating apps encourage you to share more information, from your place of work to your favorite hobbies to your ethnicity. They also monitor any activity in their app, including swipes and conversations. Obviously, a dating app can use any information you share with it to target you with ads. 

Many dating websites also contain dozens of trackers. Ghostery found that Match Group dating services (including Match.com, Tinder, and OkCupid) had up to 36 trackers on their websites, including trackers from Facebook and Google.

Dating app data breaches

Most dating apps are still relatively new. Tinder launched in 2012, yet it has already suffered several data breaches and has been caught improperly sharing user data. This is sadly the norm among dating apps, which is important to keep in mind as you decide what personal data to divulge in these apps.

Back in 2013, cybersecurity experts discovered trileration attacks ((similar to triangulation) that Tinder allowed third parties to discover users’ exact location, down to within a few hundred feet. Tinder resolved the issue by only specifying their users’ location in increments of miles, making the location data much less precise. In 2014, experts found the same flaw in Grindr. Grindr claimed to have resolved the issue, but in 2016, researchers in Japan could still determine Grindr users’ location. Then, in 2018, another security expert discovered the location of Grindr users, including ones that had opted out of letting Grindr share their location data.

A report by Kaspersky in 2017 examined several dating apps, including Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid, and found that nearly all the Android versions of these apps stored sensitive data on the Android device without proper protection. Hackers could use Facebook authorization tokens to gain full access to your account. Once a hacker had this access, they could view all the messages sent and received through these dating devices.

In January 2018, the cybersecurity firm Checkmarx discovered that Tinder did not use HTTPS encryption to secure the photos on its iOS or Android apps. If hackers connected to the same WiFi network as a Tinder user, they could see the same photos that user was viewing, whether they swiped right or left, and even insert pictures into that user’s queue. Tinder has since added HTTPS encryption to all its services. 

In April 2019, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) filed a complaint after discovering that Grindr was sharing its users’ HIV status with third parties without consent. Grindr has since announced it would stop sharing its users’ health information with third parties.

The NCC filed another complaint in 2020 after it found that Grindr, Tinder, and OkCupid were sharing data unexpectedly with ad networks and other third parties. This information included users’ ages, genders, GPS location, IP address, and details about their device. 

In January 2021, the dating website MeetMindful.com suffered a data breach that exposed the details of all of its nearly 2.3 million users. The breach exposed geolocation data, full names, email addresses, Facebook IDs, Facebook authentication tokens, and more. Later that year, an engineer discovered that Bumble allowed a trilateration attack (similar to the one that affected Tinder) that could expose a user’s exact location.

The majority of these system-level vulnerabilities have been resolved, but they speak to a culture of playing fast and loose with people’s personal data. Fortunately, there are things you can do yourself to patch up potential security failures in the dating apps you use.

How to protect your privacy on dating apps

Account security

• Use a strong, unique password and two-factor authentication if it’s available.
• Beware of links, and especially links using shortened URLs. Hackers will try to lure you away from the dating app to sites where they can more easily harvest your data. This is one of the most common Tinder scams. Rest your cursor over any link before you click it, or copy and paste the link into https://www.checkshorturl.com/. 
• Only ever access your dating app on a secure WiFi network. An even better option is to protect the internet connection of your dating app with a trustworthy VPN. This will add an extra layer of security to the app’s encryption.
• Consider subscribing to a paid plan. Many dating apps give you additional privacy options, like turning off location tracking or hiding your account, if you subscribe to a paid plan. 

Privacy and social engineering

• Never share your full name, address, or place of work in your profile. Tinder, Bumble, and Happn all allow users to add information about their jobs and education. With just this information and a first name, Kaspersky researchers matched a dating app profile to a LinkedIn or Facebook account 60% of the time.
• Use a VPN to block dating app trackers and trilateration attacks. Nearly every dating website and app contain trackers that can follow you around the internet. Proton VPN’s NetShield Ad-Blocker stops trackers from even loading, speeding up your internet connection. And, unlike other ad blockers, it can protect block trackers in apps, not just in your browser. 
• Choose your profile pictures carefully. A lot of information can often be gleaned from what is in the background of a photo, information that could be used to identify you. Also, remember that if you use a photo from one of your social media accounts, a reverse image search could link your dating profile to that account.
• Do not link your dating app account to other accounts, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. This makes it easy for hackers to connect your social media profile to your online dating one. It also would expose your data if Facebook were to suffer a data breach.
• Don’t use your everyday email for your dating app or to contact new matches. Instead, use an alias or a private email just for that specific app or relationship.
• Always disable location-sharing features.
• Give a temporary phone number to your matches. You can use services like Phoner or Burner that give you temporary phone numbers that last a couple of weeks for free or for a small fee. Since they are temporary, it is hard to use such a phone number on your dating app account, but it could give you some time to meet your matches in real life before you trust them with your phone number.
• Try reverse image searching your match’s profile picture if something feels off. If your search finds the photo is from a modeling agency or a foreign celebrity, you are likely looking at a fake account.
• Avoid sharing specific information that could identify you. Eventually, you will have to share information about yourself. After all, you are trying to convince someone that you are interesting enough to meet. Try to talk more about your interests, ambitions, and preferences. More “I love pizza” than “My favorite pizza restaurant is on the corner of Main St. and 2nd Ave.” Never be afraid to say “no” if someone asks you for personal information that you’re not yet comfortable sharing.
• Avoid sending photos to people you do not know. Photos can contain metadata about when and where the photo was taken. If you must share a photo, be sure to remove its metadata first.
• Beware of chatting with bots. Online bots are getting harder and harder to detect, but one test you can try is to work gibberish into a phrase, like “I love a;lkjasdllkjf,” and see if the bot repeats the non-word or transitions into a non-sequitur question. (If it’s a human, you can always cover by saying your phone slipped.)
• If someone asks you over a dating app to send them money, your answer should always be “No” unless you want to show up on the next version of The Tinder Swindler. 
• Do not immediately friend your matches on Facebook. Once someone has access to your Facebook account, they can see your friend and family network along with your past activity and location. Wait until you have been dating for a month or two before friending them. (Or, more ideally, quit Facebook.)

Physical safety

• Arrange to meet in a public area and let a friend know that you are going. You should also choose to meet in a neutral place, not the restaurant or cafe you go to every week.

Don’t let this advice scare you off of dating apps! They can be fun, and they’ve helped millions of people find dates, hookups, friends, and partners. Just try not to let Cupid’s arrow lull you into a false sense of security, and always keep in mind that this person who seems too good to be true just might be.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

The post How to protect your privacy on dating apps appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Depending on the country you are in, certain videos are blocked. This is because YouTube uses your location (tagged by your IP address) to determine which videos you can watch. This is called geoblocking or geo-restricting. 

If you have tried to use YouTube while on vacation or living abroad, you will likely be familiar with YouTube’s geo-restriction error message, “The uploader has not made this video available in your country” that occasionally pops up when you try to access videos you watch in your home country.

However, as with other types of geo-restrictions, there are ways to unblock YouTube videos and enjoy all the content on the platform.

Why are videos blocked on YouTube?

There are generally two reasons why YouTube geo-blocks content:

1. Licensing: This typically happens with entertainment material owned by a major company. The video’s owner either has chosen to restrict access to a limited number of countries or does not have the right to share the video in specific countries. Many music videos fall under licensing restrictions, like Wiz Khalifa’s official video for Black and Yellow, which is blocked in most of Africa and parts of Central America and the Caribbean.  
2. Complying with local laws: YouTube sometimes blocks a video if it violates local law. For example, it is illegal in Thailand to insult the Thai monarch, so videos critical of the Thai king are blocked within the country. 

At Proton, we believe that the internet is best when you have the freedom to express yourself and exchange ideas. This freedom is undermined when corporations like YouTube impose geoblocks on content. Proton VPN is a firm defender of freedom of speech, and we condemn online censorship in all its forms.

How to unblock YouTube videos

The fastest, easiest, and most reliable way to unblock YouTube videos is to use a VPN. Using a VPN lets you connect to a server in another country and change your IP address to make it appear to YouTube that you are watching videos from that country. By connecting to a server in a country where the videos you want to watch are not blocked, you can successfully bypass geo-restrictions on all YouTube videos.

1. To watch a blocked YouTube video using a VPN, you will first need to sign up for a trustworthy VPN. You can sign up for Proton VPN here.
2. You then need to download and install the VPN app on your device. You can download Proton VPN here, which will allow you to unblock YouTube videos on your mobile and desktop devices or even on your Android TV.
3. Once you have installed the VPN app, you need to log in and connect to a VPN server in a country where the video you want to watch is not blocked. 
4. You can now watch all the YouTube videos that are not blocked in that country.

Depending on the video, it may be obvious which countries it is available in, or you may need to try a few different locations to find one that works. For example, Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American television show that geoblocks its most recent videos on YouTube for anyone outside of the US. As you would expect, connecting to a US server will make those videos available. However, it may not always be so obvious which country you need to choose to unlock a specific YouTube video.

Using SNL as an example, you can see the extent to which some YouTube channels geoblock their content by looking at how many more videos are available when connected to a VPN server in the US.

Why unblock YouTube with a VPN?

By using a trustworthy and secure VPN to unblock YouTube videos, you are also masking your IP address from your internet service provider and keeping your online activity private. Using a VPN to unblock YouTube videos is also much safer and more reliable than using a YouTube proxy, and it offers a better watching experience than using Tor (although using Tor to unblock YouTube may be necessary in some edge cases).

By using a VPN to bypass geo-restrictions on YouTube videos, you will:

• Keep your viewing history private
• Find it easy to switch between servers in different countries to access different content
• Have a fast enough connection to easily stream videos

You should note that a VPN can see all your online activity while you are connected, which is why you should only use trustworthy VPNs with a no-logs policy, like Proton VPN. (Our latest security audit results confirm our no logs policy.)

Learn more about how VPNs work.

Other ways to unblock YouTube videos

Although using a VPN is generally the best way to unblock YouTube videos, you do have other options.

Unblock YouTube videos with Tor Browser

The Tor Browser is a powerful privacy tool that you can use to hide your IP address. It lets you send your internet traffic over the Tor network, a web of special servers around the world. The Tor Browser encrypts your internet traffic three times and then routes it through three different servers, making it almost impossible to trace, so YouTube is unable to know your real IP address and can’t geoblock videos for your location.

The average YouTube user would be better served simply using a VPN, which makes selecting a country to browse from quick and easy. However, you should use Tor Browser to unblock geo-restricted YouTube videos if you think there would be dire ramifications if local authorities found out you were watching this video  (for example, due to authoritarian restrictions on freedom of information).

While it is a somewhat complicated procedure, you can also set which country the final Tor server is in. There are three main reasons you should avoid using Tor to stream YouTube:

• Tor traffic is slow
• By watching a YouTube video on Tor, you will make the connection even slower for everyone else using Tor
• Tor can be complicated to set up and use

Learn more about using Tor.

Unblock YouTube videos with YouTube proxies

A proxy server also allows you to browse the internet as though you are in another country by connecting you to another server. The proxy server hides your IP address from your destination site similarly to a VPN. However, proxies should generally be avoided because they can: 

• Expose your data
• Monitor your online activity
• Provide generally weak performance

However, unlike a VPN, a proxy only works over the connection you open with the proxy. For example, if you are listening to Spotify via the desktop app and you connect to a proxy server in your internet browser, only the traffic from your internet browser will go through the proxy, while Spotify will continue to connect to your local ISP.

Secondly, proxies do not add extra encryption to your traffic like a VPN. In fact, in many cases, free proxies ban HTTPS traffic. This means that not only is your data vulnerable to being intercepted and read, but the proxy service can track your activity while you are connected to it. Also, free proxy connections are usually less stable and slower than a VPN connection.

What if YouTube is blocked altogether?

There are some instances where YouTube is blocked altogether, rather than individual videos. This can happen in countries with strict censorship practices or if you use a network that blocks YouTube using a firewall (for example, at work or school).

Government censorship

Some countries, like China, Iran, and Turkmenistan, have blocked YouTube entirely. The reasons provided for blocking YouTube include protecting citizens from harmful content, national security, or for morality reasons. Depending on the methods that country uses, a VPN may or may not be effective.

Network firewalls 

Many schools and workplaces use firewalls to block certain websites like YouTube to remove distractions or increase productivity. However, there are many cases where access to YouTube videos is necessary in these environments — especially for educational reasons.

You can still use a VPN to bypass these restrictions on accessing YouTube, as the VPN will hide your internet traffic from the firewall.

1. To unblock YouTube using a VPN, you will first need to sign up for a VPN. You can sign up for Proton VPN here.
2. You then need to download and install the right VPN app for your device.
3. Once you have installed the VPN app, you need to log in and connect to a VPN server in a country where YouTube is not blocked. If you only need to bypass a network firewall, you can connect to a server in the same country that you are already in, as this will still prevent the firewall from blocking your browsing activity.
4. You will now be able to watch YouTube videos.

FAQ

The post How to watch blocked YouTube videos appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

We are happy to announce that we have installed 4 new servers in Cyprus, making it the 55th country to join the Proton VPN network.  You can connect to these new servers in Cyprus to access geoblocked content and protect your internet traffic from being monitored. 

We installed 4 new VPN servers in a data center in Limassol, Cyprus. 

They are available to users on our paid plans. Each new server we install increases our capacity for new users and improves service for our current users.

CY#1 is available on our Basic plan.
CY#2-4 are available on our Plus and Visionary plans.

See where all Proton VPN servers are located.

To access our VPN servers in Cyprus, click the Sign Up button below. Or if you already have an account and want to upgrade to access premium features, like Secure Core (read more below), click Upgrade.

Benefits of Cypriot VPN servers

These servers will let anyone outside the country, no matter where you are, browse the internet with a Cypriot IP address and access geoblocked content on Cypriot websites.

If you are currently located in Cyprus, using one of our Cyprus VPN servers will help protect your online activity from being monitored by your internet service providers or network administrators.

By connecting to these new servers, you can browse the internet as though you are in Cyprus and protect your internet traffic with an extra layer of encryption.

Learn more about how a VPN keeps your location private

More about Proton VPN

Proton VPN is a secure, community-supported VPN service. It was developed by the same team that created Proton Mail, the world’s largest encrypted email provider. We offer the only free VPN service that does not have data caps, impose bandwidth limits, use privacy-invading ads, or log user activity. 

While our essential security and privacy tools will always be free, we offer extra features to users who choose to upgrade and support our mission.

Proton VPN Plus or Visionary users can activate our Secure Core feature. Secure Core allows you to add another layer of security because it routes your internet traffic through a hardened server before sending it on to an exit server in your desired country. These hardened servers are controlled and owned by Proton VPN, making it less likely that an attacker could access them. By routing your traffic through two servers, Proton VPN offers you protection from even advanced network attacks.

Proton VPN works on various desktop and mobile devices: Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and iOS.

Our mission is to make online security and privacy accessible to all. Thank you for your support. Keep an eye out for new developments on our social media pages below.

Best regards,
The Proton VPN team

You can follow us on social media to stay up to date on the latest Proton VPN releases:

Twitter | Facebook | Reddit | Instagram

To get a free Proton Mail encrypted email account, visit proton.me/mail

The post Browse the internet securely with a Cypriot IP address appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

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This online streaming guide will help you watch the 2021 Australian Open while keeping your online activity private and secure.

When is the Australian Open?

The Australian Open began on Feb. 8 at 11 AM Melbourne time, when Naomi Osaka beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in straight sets.

The men’s and women’s singles quarterfinals began on Feb. 16 at 12:30 PM Melbourne time, when Naomi Osaka, again, beat Su Wei Hsieh in straight sets.

The tournament organizers have not released a full schedule for the upcoming matches, however the official Australian Open schedule is updated daily. 

Who is playing in this year’s Australian Open?

This Australian Open always has 128 men and women qualify for the singles tournament (along with 64 men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles teams). Alongside Djokovic and Kenin, the two defending champions, this year’s tournament will include relative newcomers Dominic Thiem and Naomi Osaka, as well as all-time tennis legends Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams.

Stream the Australian Open live online

As the first major of the tennis season, the Australian Open is your chance to see which new stars will burst onto the scene, who is working back from injury, and who could be a contender to dominate this year. 

Proton VPN lets you get around geoblocking so you can watch your favorite tennis players at the Australian Open no matter where you’re traveling. 

To access the online streaming sites, you will need to sign up for a Proton VPN Plus or Proton Unlimited plan, which starts at just $8/month. If you already use the Free Proton VPN plan, click the Upgrade button to catch all the big matches.

Where to watch the Australian Open

There are several websites that you can use to stream the Australian Open.

If you are an ESPN subscriber, you can watch over 1,400 hours of tennis action on ESPN+ by connecting to any Proton VPN Plus server in the US and logging in to your account. ESPN+ subscriptions cost $5.99 per month.

Subscribers to Hulu + Live TV can also watch the Australian Open on ESPN. A Hulu + Live TV subscription costs $64.99 per month, but it comes with a seven-day free trial. Once your Hulu + Live TV account is set up, all you need to do is connect to any Proton VPN Plus server in the US.

For sports fans who want even more broadcasts, you can catch the Australian Open on fuboTV, along with just about every other sports event. It offers over 100 sports channels for a monthly subscription of $64.99. If you sign up now, you can get a one week free trial. Just connect to a Proton VPN Plus server in the US to get started.

You can also watch all the tennis action on Australia’s Channel 9. In fact, you can catch every tennis match on every court for free using their 9Now streaming app. That means that during the open rounds, you’ll be able to choose from over a dozen different matches at the same time. You just need a Channel 9 account (it is free to set up) and to connect to any Proton VPN Plus server in Australia. 

(We will update this page if or when we become aware of changes.)

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There’s nothing like watching tennis to help you get through the cold months of winter. Enjoy the matches! Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ProtonVPN and let us know your predictions of who is going to win it all.

Best Regards,
The Proton VPN Team

You can follow us on social media to stay up to date on the latest Proton VPN releases:

Twitter | Facebook | Reddit | Instagram

To get a free Proton Mail encrypted email account, visit: proton.me/mail

The post How to watch the 2021 Australian Open live online appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Today, we’re releasing an exciting new feature that makes it easier for Proton VPN users with a Proton VPN Plus, Proton Unlimited, or Visionary plan to keep your devices secure and your browsing private.

NetShield is now available on our Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps and is in beta on our Linux command line tool. It blocks malware, ads, and online trackers before they even load. This helps keep your device safe and improves your browsing speed. 

How NetShield Ad-blocker protects you

When you turn NetShield on, it offers you two levels of protection: 

• The first level prevents your browser from loading resources from domains that host malware, spyware, or other malicious software.
• The second level blocks ads and the online trackers that adtech companies use to target you, in addition to blocking malware. This advanced level of protection is on by default when you first enable NetShield.

If you want to use NetShield Ad-blocker to block ads and have a faster and more private browsing experience, upgrade to a Proton VPN Plus or Proton Unlimited plan.

When you enable NetShield, any time you try to go to a website, the Proton VPN app will check that website’s address against a massive database of sites known to host malware, spyware, or any other malicious software. If it finds the domain of the website you are trying to visit or any of its components (scripts, images, etc.) on one of these lists, NetShield will automatically block it from loading. 

If you enable ad blocking in NetShield, not only will it protect you from malware, but it will also block the annoying ads that clutter your screen. And unlike most popular ad blockers that only work in your browser, NetShield’s ad and tracker blocking works for the entire device. In addition to being annoying, these ads also eat up data and slow down your browsing experience.

With NetShield Ad-blocker, you can enjoy a faster, ad-free internet and reduce your data usage. And with the Netshield Privacy Panel, you can see how NetShield is protecting your privacy using easy-to-understand statistics that measure how many ads and trackers have been blocked, and how much data has been saved for the current session.

How NetShield works

To visit a website, you need to type in or click on a URL to get to the specific webpage you want. However, most people don’t realize there is a step between entering the URL and arriving at your desired webpage. That extra step involves making a domain name system (DNS) request.

Website URLs are created to be memorable for humans (e.g., www.protonvpn.com), but they don’t mean much to computers. They prefer IP addresses, (e.g., the IP address for Proton VPN’s website is 185.159.159.140). The DNS is the system that translates a human-friendly URL to a machine-friendly IP address. When you type in a URL and hit enter, your browser automatically tries to match it to the correct IP address by sending out a DNS request.

To prevent DNS leaks that could let attackers track your online browsing, Proton VPN encrypts all DNS requests in the VPN tunnel and handles them with a dedicated DNS server. 

Learn more about DNS leaks

If you enable NetShield, when your device makes a DNS request, the DNS resolver on Proton VPN’s server runs a quick check against databases of web domains known to host malware, trackers, spyware, and any malicious software that could compromise your device’s security. NetShield checks not only the website’s domain, but also all additional domains for the scripts, images, and any other resources associated with that webpage.

If NetShield finds a match between your DNS request and this list, it stops the DNS request. This prevents you from loading the corresponding IP address and resource.

If you think a website or online resource is being blocked in error, you can turn NetShield off to access it. 

The system works the same for ad and tracker blocking, only NetShield checks your DNS request against a database of known advertising agencies and online trackers. These lists are continuously updated so they will block new ads and trackers.

Proton VPN does not keep any logs of your DNS requests, so none of this data can be shared with any third parties.

Netshield Privacy Panel

The Netshield Privacy Panel shows how NetShield Ad-blocker is protecting you and improving your browsing experience. With just a glance, you can see:

• The number of ads blocked
• The number of trackers blocked
• The total amount of data saved

These statistics are for your current session and are reset when you manually disconnect from the VPN. The Netshield Privacy Panel doesn’t reset if you suffer an accidental disconnection, change your kill switch settings, or change VPN protocols.

The Netshield Privacy Panel is available to everyone on a paid Proton VPN plan.

Protect yourself with NetShield Ad-blocker

You can protect your browsing with NetShield today. You will need to have the latest version of the Proton VPN app to use NetShield to block ads and trackers. (You can check for updates in the Settings or About section of the app.)

Learn how to use NetShield

NetShield is part of our effort to make safe online browsing easier and faster. Let us know what you think of NetShield on on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and Linkedin. And thank you to the Proton VPN community. Without your support, advancements like NetShield would be impossible. 

The post Protect yourself from malware, evade online trackers, and block ads with NetShield Ad-blocker appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Internet blocks and shutdowns should be recognized as acts of oppression. Governments are censoring their citizens’ speech and preventing them from accessing information, often so they can maintain power in the face of mass protests or contested elections. These shutdowns and blackouts are even more unacceptable this year as Covid-19 has forced many people to rely on the internet for their job, entertainment, and communication with family and friends.

How shutdowns work

From a technical standpoint, it is relatively simple to shut down the internet in a country where there are only one or two national telecom or internet service providers (ISPs). The government simply forces these companies to shut down their services. If they want to be more targeted, the government can present these ISPs with a list of URLs to block. Usually, this list will include social media sites, messaging apps, and anything else that people can use to communicate and coordinate. 

Governments usually justify internet shutdowns with claims that they are necessary to halt the spread of fake news or to preserve public safety. Whatever the government’s stated reason, the actual cause is usually a protest, military action, political instability, or election, as this Access Now report shows. Observers have noted that governments shut down the internet whenever they stand to gain from disrupting people’s ability to organize, speak out, and report abuses.

Repressive regimes have found that blocking social media sites is as effective at disrupting protesters and opposition parties as complete internet shutdowns and less costly to the national economy. 

Below, we examine nine examples from the past year when protesters turned to Proton VPN to protect their right to free speech and access censored content.

Turkey

On Feb. 27, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed and dozens more injured in an airstrike in Syria’s Idlib region on the Turkish border. Turkish officials blamed the Syrian regime for the attack, but local sources and video footage suggested that Russian aircraft carried out the strike. 

Shortly after this attack, the Turkish government directed Turk Telecom to block internet connections to all major social media networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and WhatsApp, for roughly 16 hours. During that time, visits to Proton VPN increased 362%. (Note: In this article, percentage increases are compared with previous daily average visits.)

Hong Kong

In May, the Chinese National People’s Congress approved a national security law that criminalized the protests and dissent that were taking place in Hong Kong and made it easier for law enforcement to surveil citizens without the need for warrants. In response, Hong Kongers rushed to sign up for Proton VPN so that they could protect their online activity from surveillance. 

Visits to Proton VPN spiked more than 1,200% (and sign ups increased 3,000%) following the initial announcement of the National Security Law. We saw additional spikes in July and August as more details about the law began to emerge and the law was finally implemented.

Former Hong Kong legislator Nathan Law explains how freedom is under threat and what Hong Kongers can do to resist. 

Mali

In Mali, regular widespread protests against then-President Keïta (also known by his initials, IBK) had been taking place since 2020 began. Then, on July 12, IBK dissolved Mali’s Constitutional Court and had religious leaders and opposition politicians arrested, which led to even more intense public demonstrations. 

To prevent protesters from organizing, the Malian government ordered Malitel and Orange, the two major network providers, to block social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook, Viber, and Instagram. 

This caused daily average visits to Proton VPN to increase by 2,576%.

Zimbabwe

Protesters planned nationwide demonstrations against the ruling political party and government corruption for July 31. However, once the day arrived, they found hundreds of military troops and police officers out in force in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. The government shut the city down, cleared the streets, and arrested dozens of protesters, opposition leaders, and even the internationally lauded novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga.

The government also ordered the national network providers to throttle the network, leading to slow connections for roughly 14 hours. 

Visits to the Proton VPN site from Zimbabwe increased by 1,260%.

Belarus

Alexander Lukashenko, known to critics as “Europe’s last dictator,” was re-elected as Belarus’s president on Aug. 9 in an election that nearly all international observers said was marred by violence, intimidation, and widespread fraud. During this contentious election, Lukashenko’s regime cut internet access across the country. When the government ordered the internet be turned back on, social media and communication services were blocked. 

Visits to Proton VPN increased 800% immediately following the election.

Learn more about Proton’s support of protesters in Belarus.

Azerbaijan

After escalating tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the border region of Nagorno-Karabakh spilled over into military conflict, the Azeri government announced it would restrict internet access throughout the country. The block affected nearly all social media platforms, including Twitter, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Facebook, and the internet in general was throttled for over a month. 

During this period, visits to Proton VPN spiked 4,435% above the average daily numbers we’d seen in previous months. 

Kyrgyzstan

Protesters took to the streets in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, after widespread reports of vote-buying and other electoral fraud during the country’s Oct. 5 parliamentary elections. Amid a violent crackdown by law enforcement, protesters took over the Parliamentary building and forced the government to annul the election results. 

The Kyrgyz government ordered a partial internet block, which focused on preventing protesters from communicating and organizing. 

This led to a 1,650% increase in visits to Proton VPN followed by numerous similar spikes over the following weeks. 

Vietnam

Vietnam’s government has consistently pressured social media sites, like Facebook, to censor posts that officials deem are “anti-state.” Amid this repression, Vietnamese law enforcement arrested Pham Doan Trang, a well-respected independent journalist, this October for posting online about a highly sensitive land rights clash that involves the government building a military airbase near the village of Dong Tam.

This arrest coincided with a 355% increase in visitors to Proton VPN. 

Thailand

Anti-monarchy, pro-democracy protests have been going on in Thailand since February. What began as demonstrations against current Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha have turned into calls to reform the entire Thai system of government, including its monarchy. 

In October, the Thai government attempted to put down the protests. It declared a state of emergency in Bangkok, shut down Voice TV, a media outlet reporting on the protests, and threatened to block messaging platforms like Telegram. Authorities even threatened to prosecute demonstrators for their online posts using the Thai Computer Crime Act.

This drove Thai citizens to turn to Proton VPN in record numbers. Proton VPN usage in the country has been far above normal levels, and visitors peaked at 1,700% higher than the daily average.

Tanzania

Tanzania’s president, John Magufali, was reelected to a second term in an election that opposition leaders and some international observers claim had serious irregularities. The night before the election, Magufuli’s government ordered the national telecom providers to block all major social media platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter, as well as most Google services. 

This led to a massive 37,000% spike in visits to Proton VPN.

As 2020 has demonstrated, internet blocks are not going away. This troubling trend is spreading to more and more countries around the world. Fortunately, people can take back control of their internet with Proton VPN. 

How Proton VPN defeats these blocks

If you are in a country where the ISP is blocking WhatsApp, for example, there is very little WhatsApp or anyone outside the country can do to reestablish service other than apply diplomatic pressure. However, if citizens within that country use Proton VPN, they can connect to a server in another country where WhatsApp is not blocked, allowing them to access the app and send and receive messages. 

This makes Proton VPN a powerful tool when it comes to protecting your online activity from surveillance and accessing blocked apps or censored material. Because we believe the right to free speech is a fundamental human right, we offer a free version of Proton VPN, so that everyone can access the truth and express themselves online.

Governments could block VPN sites and apps like ours, but experts suspect they don’t because they are primarily used by expats, foreign diplomats, and international companies that could more easily register complaints with high-ranking officials. We have also developed an alternative routing feature, which will allow you to reach our site even if your local ISP is trying to block it.

Proton VPN has several factors that separate it from other VPNs and make it the first choice of anyone who fears their internet connection may be monitored or blocked. 

• Transparency — You know the team behind Proton VPN and where we are based.
• Strong security — We keep no logs, only use VPN protocols that are known to be secure, and protect your internet connection with advanced encryption.
• Open source and audited apps — All our apps have been examined by cybersecurity experts, and we have published their reports so you can see their evaluation. Or you can check our apps’ code for yourself to ensure that it does what we claim.
• Free and unlimited — Those most vulnerable to internet censorship often cannot afford a VPN. Proton VPN is one of the only free VPN services that has no ads, no bandwidth limits, and no data limits.

Proton’s mission is to preserve the human rights of free speech, privacy, and democracy, and we are happy to see that our service has made a difference for people in their time of need. We also want to thank the Proton community. Your support allows us to defend the human rights of free speech and democracy when they are under attack.

You can follow us on social media to stay up to date on the latest Proton VPN releases:

Twitter | Facebook | Reddit | Instagram

To get a free Proton Mail encrypted email account, visit proton.me/mail

The post When faced with internet censorship, people around the world turn to Proton VPN appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.