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To russian artists or their friends [FurAffinity blocked]
2 years ago
General
Aparently russia blocked FA yet again.
So if you're russian and can still access for some reason or you have a russian friend that you can still talk to on discord or something..
Nearly no VPN works in russia any more. It's china 2.0.
So because I have a russian artist friend, lemme share my findings that you may pass on.
First, the big VPNs, like north, proton (edit: not quite, see below), etc, forget them, all blocked.
What worked is some (but far from all) of VPN gate's servers. And the positive is, while they're slow, they're all free.
https://www.vpngate.net/en/
that site is blocked too in russia, so if you have a friend with that problem, you gotta lead them through the process.
Many of those in the list are blocked, but some are not. Try those with best "line quality" first - but if you get some error, don't give up but try another one. And, of course, don't use those in russia lol.
I'll assume you don't want to install additional software. So above the server list, untick all but L2TP and hit "refresh list". Windows without extra software may also support SSTP, but I only tried L2TP with my friend. If you don't mind installing new software, guides for any type are on the site itself.
Select Start > Settings > Network & internet > VPN > Add VPN
use "l2tp/ipsec with a pre-shared key" and username/password authorization.
the pre-shared key, the password and the user are all "vpn", for all of the servers in the list.
here's a russian screenshot of how it should look: https://files.catbox.moe/vc7h9b.png but you should use the ip, not the domain name, in case the domain name is blocked.
remember, the first one may not work, keep trying. My friend found one in japan and one in germany that worked. and one in the UK that somewhat worked.
a more permanent and faster solution may be this:
https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-create-a-free-vpn-server-on-aws-655ca3b3ff32
I'm not sure if it stays free, the trial period of AWS is 12 months, but according to some I asked it shouldn't go above $10 a month which would still be an ok deal.
EDIT:
Just got another input on discord:
>My friend who is absolutely tech illiterate managed to host himself a wireguard instance with this guide: https://youtu.be/3CAvfwg6bTQ.
>For a VPS I am not sure what he chose, I myself use the first one I found that accepts crypto(pulseheberg), 4 eur/month for 250mbps bandwidth
>Also using big cloud services for a VPN server is a bad idea as their IPs are often blacklisted
I can't say much to that as I can't even understand the video, but it may be useful
EDIT:
Looked some more. A free proper VPN that seems to work in russia is Windscribe. The free version is capped at 10GB/month tho. Still, while you get very slow speeds on vpngate, windscribe is fast.
https://www.top10vpn.com/reviews/windscribe/
Proton, a superb VPN that is big on privacy, has recently (end of 2022) launched a stealth protocol that can beat russias filters. It's currently only available for ios and android, but they work on a windows version.
Proton paid version is rather expensive but the reason I mention it is that it's free version has no data cap. The only downside is less countries to VPN to (not really a big deal) and no P2P (torrenting). So check out Proton VPN as well, can't be too long until the stealth protocol comes to windows.
For paid ones, see https://www.top10vpn.com/best-vpn/russia/
Another option is a free browser plugin - search chrome store or firefox plugin for 1clickVPN. It's confirmed to work in russia, but..
Well the desktop app seems to be only free on trial (not sure with the browser plugin), and sometime stops working according to reviews, the company seems based in the arab emirates.. I'd personallyskip that one, but it's probably the easiest.
So if you're russian and can still access for some reason or you have a russian friend that you can still talk to on discord or something..
Nearly no VPN works in russia any more. It's china 2.0.
So because I have a russian artist friend, lemme share my findings that you may pass on.
First, the big VPNs, like north, proton (edit: not quite, see below), etc, forget them, all blocked.
What worked is some (but far from all) of VPN gate's servers. And the positive is, while they're slow, they're all free.
https://www.vpngate.net/en/
that site is blocked too in russia, so if you have a friend with that problem, you gotta lead them through the process.
Many of those in the list are blocked, but some are not. Try those with best "line quality" first - but if you get some error, don't give up but try another one. And, of course, don't use those in russia lol.
I'll assume you don't want to install additional software. So above the server list, untick all but L2TP and hit "refresh list". Windows without extra software may also support SSTP, but I only tried L2TP with my friend. If you don't mind installing new software, guides for any type are on the site itself.
Select Start > Settings > Network & internet > VPN > Add VPN
use "l2tp/ipsec with a pre-shared key" and username/password authorization.
the pre-shared key, the password and the user are all "vpn", for all of the servers in the list.
here's a russian screenshot of how it should look: https://files.catbox.moe/vc7h9b.png but you should use the ip, not the domain name, in case the domain name is blocked.
remember, the first one may not work, keep trying. My friend found one in japan and one in germany that worked. and one in the UK that somewhat worked.
a more permanent and faster solution may be this:
https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-create-a-free-vpn-server-on-aws-655ca3b3ff32
I'm not sure if it stays free, the trial period of AWS is 12 months, but according to some I asked it shouldn't go above $10 a month which would still be an ok deal.
EDIT:
Just got another input on discord:
>My friend who is absolutely tech illiterate managed to host himself a wireguard instance with this guide: https://youtu.be/3CAvfwg6bTQ.
>For a VPS I am not sure what he chose, I myself use the first one I found that accepts crypto(pulseheberg), 4 eur/month for 250mbps bandwidth
>Also using big cloud services for a VPN server is a bad idea as their IPs are often blacklisted
I can't say much to that as I can't even understand the video, but it may be useful
EDIT:
Looked some more. A free proper VPN that seems to work in russia is Windscribe. The free version is capped at 10GB/month tho. Still, while you get very slow speeds on vpngate, windscribe is fast.
https://www.top10vpn.com/reviews/windscribe/
Proton, a superb VPN that is big on privacy, has recently (end of 2022) launched a stealth protocol that can beat russias filters. It's currently only available for ios and android, but they work on a windows version.
Proton paid version is rather expensive but the reason I mention it is that it's free version has no data cap. The only downside is less countries to VPN to (not really a big deal) and no P2P (torrenting). So check out Proton VPN as well, can't be too long until the stealth protocol comes to windows.
For paid ones, see https://www.top10vpn.com/best-vpn/russia/
Another option is a free browser plugin - search chrome store or firefox plugin for 1clickVPN. It's confirmed to work in russia, but..
Well the desktop app seems to be only free on trial (not sure with the browser plugin), and sometime stops working according to reviews, the company seems based in the arab emirates.. I'd personallyskip that one, but it's probably the easiest.
But it's really a big problem that access to the FA and Twitter has become so difficult and slow