So I kind of hate that Putin is trying to restrict the flow of information into Russia so that he can control the narrative, so for my Russian friends, here is my guide on
How to get around internet censorship and maintain internet privacy
This will be an extremely long post đ
This will hopefully help you access the internet regardless of Russian government bans. Itâs a little slow, but better than nothing. It hides your IP address from the internet, so itâs kind of like using a VPN. A very basic summary of how Tor works: your internet traffic is routed through several ânodesâ. The Entry Node, can see your IP address but has no idea what data youâre sending, and this goes through several middle nodes, until it reaches the Exit Node. The Exit Node can see what data youâre sending, but it canât see your IP address so it doesnât know WHO sent it. Thatâs why itâs a good idea to do nothing identifying when using the Tor Browser, like writing personal information. Hereâs a blog post with more detailed information about the Tor Browser.
VPNs are often used to get around government internet restrictions. Russia will probably not be able to do much about it. However, not all VPNs are created equal. Nearly all of the free VPNs are a scam that turn around and sell your data, so free VPNs are not secure. The only exception to this is ProtonVPN which has a free tier, but itâs very slow. Basically the only good VPN is one you pay for. When choosing a VPN, be aware of where the company is based, because if a VPN company is based in the USA, it will have to comply USA privacy laws. So choose a VPN based in a country that has good privacy laws. A great one is Mullvad VPN, which is based in Sweden. But for the purposes of Russia, just making sure your VPN is not Russian or in a country sympathetic to Russia is probably good enough.
Alternative Front-Ends
A frontend is the the part of a website which the user interacts with directly. To browse the contents of websites, you usually have to visit them. However, many people have made alternative privacy-respecting frontends to popular websites that allow you to see the siteâs content without actually visiting the website. This helps avoid tracking, data-collection, and even countriesâ attempts to ban websites. Twitter is banned in Russia right now, but using all an alternative frontend to Twitter works (according to my Russian friend).
Lingva Translate / Instances
SimplyTranslate / Instances
some instances allow you to choose to translate with several other services (such as DeepL)
If anyone knows of one of these for Tumblr please let me know. I found this site called Tumgir but it looks sketchy and unlike the rest of the ones I listed, itâs not open-source. So visit with caution, but Iâm mentioning it because it might be better than nothing.
There are also these browser extensions that automatically redirect site links to the available alternatives:
LibRedirect - Redirects YouTube, YT Music, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Imgur, Reddit, Wikipedia, Medium, etc.
Privacy Redirect - Redirects Google Maps, Google Search, Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Youtube.
Privacy Redirect - Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Google Translate, Google maps, Google Search, Medium
UntrackMe - Google Maps, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube
Messaging / Communication
Matrix is a federated and decentralized End-to-End Encrypted (E2EE) messaging with many platforms, the most popular of which is Element. Itâs like Discord, but worse. Itâs getting better over time though! You can even use a a throwaway email to sign-up.
If youâre Russian you likely already know about Telegram, but MAKE SURE youâre aware that only Secret Chats are End-to-End Encrypted. So donât say anything that would get you in trouble outside of a Secret Chat.
China is way better at internet censorship. Theyâve had years to build the infrastructure to control the flow of information online. And yet, the Chinese people still manage to âclimb the wallâ and find ways around this. Russia is new to this game and doesnât have the resources China does. So I really doubt itâll be that hard to get around their attempts to block websites. Have faith! And feel free to DM me for more info cause this post just scratches the surface for things you can do tbh.
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