Anybody know of anything else that would be quite wise to purchase sooner than later, due to potential (or incoming) regulation that would be regarded as privacy-infringing to enforce? I was thinking about this because I’ve been pondering a high-quality 3D printer purchase for this reason.
Advice for varying levels of budget would be quite nice, too; I partially intend on this being a post people may want to revisit.
Not if they start using DPI and block VPN protocols. VPNs that use OpenVPN, Wireguard and other non-censorship-resistant protocols (including Mullvad) don’t work in China, Iran or Russia.
Mullvad and other mainstream VPN providers only work in free countries where VPN is allowed.
Mullvad had some anti-censorship option last I checked. Don’t remember what exactly it does, but it had some sort of option.
https://mullvad.net/en/help/connecting-to-mullvad-vpn-from-restrictive-locations
This is what I can find on their website. Last updated April 22, 2026.
Seems like Russia is mostly blocked and China is fully blocked.
But Russia, China, and Iran are listed here. So maybe works? I’m confused
It is a legitimate arms race. Things are changing weekly, you gotta understand what you’re doing and why and take other steps to connect to stuff sometimes.
So what does work in those countries?
Protocols that mimic regular https traffic in a way that survives DPI. There are many variants like vless+reality+vision, naiveproxy, etc. It’s still cat-and-mouse game since government’s DPI systems are constantly improving.
Interesting. What would you recommend though, and how would you recommend searching for these services?
Just on the off chance that north america could become like the aforementioned countries.
You can self host xray or sing-box server (which implement many of the protocols) on a cheap vps. A lot of documentation is not great and is either in Chinese or Russian but it’s doable. There are also paid services offering vless with various degrees of reliability and sketchiness.
Of course the real challenge when living in an authoritarian country is how to pay for it. I.e.you need to buy a vps abroad. I guess it will be easier in USA then in countries under sanctions or with internal restrictions where people generally can’t use Visa or PayPal.
I’m actually wondering the same thing. I had the thought of buying a ridiculous amount of VPN time quite some time ago but ultimately decided against it for the reasons listed.