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Doors to the real Internet

Last verified: September 2026. This landscape shifts constantly — tools get blocked, protocols get patched, new ones emerge. Treat this as a dated snapshot, not a permanent reference; the meta-resources at the bottom stay current even when specific tool names here go stale.

Circumvention protocols/clients (the actual bypass tech)

  • Shadowsocks (shadowsocks.org) — SOCKS5 proxy purpose-built to defeat DPI-based blocking; the long-standing standard against the GFW specifically
  • V2Ray/V2Fly (v2fly.org) and Xray — protocol suite built on top of/alongside Shadowsocks, widely used in China
  • Trojan (trojan-gfw.github.io) — disguises traffic as ordinary HTTPS, harder for DPI to fingerprint
  • Hysteria (hysteria.network) — UDP-based, designed to perform well even on high-loss/heavily-throttled networks
  • NaiveProxy (github.com/klzgrad/naiveproxy) — HTTPS-camouflaged, rides on Chromium's own network stack
  • Clash / Clash Meta / Mihomo — GUI clients that can run most of the above protocols, common entry point for non-technical users
  • AmneziaWG — a WireGuard variant specifically modified to evade DPI (plain WireGuard's handshake is fingerprintable and gets blocked)

Turnkey apps (less setup, good for less technical users)

  • Psiphon (psiphon.ca) — one-tap, widely used in Iran/China, adapts protocols automatically
  • Lantern (getlantern.org) — P2P-assisted, designed for censored regions
  • Outline (getoutline.org, Jigsaw/Google) — easy to self-host a Shadowsocks server for personal/small-group use
  • Tor Browser (torproject.org) — the standard for anonymity, has built-in "bridges" (obfs4, snowflake) specifically for censored networks where plain Tor is blocked

Messaging resistant to shutdown/surveillance

  • Briar (briarproject.org) — peer-to-peer, works over Bluetooth/WiFi/Tor, no central server needed at all — keeps working during a full internet shutdown, closest fit to this project's actual scenario
  • Signal (signal.org) — E2E encrypted, has domain-fronting history for reaching it when blocked
  • SimpleX Chat (simplex.chat) — no persistent user identifiers by design
  • bitchat — Bluetooth mesh messaging, no internet needed at all

App distribution when Google Play itself is blocked/monitored

  • F-Droid (f-droid.org) — open-source Android app store, common distribution channel for circumvention tools

DNS-layer help (EFW does DNS pollution specifically)

  • Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 app — DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS, defeats basic DNS injection; has a built-in WARP VPN mode too
  • NextDNS — configurable DoH resolver
  • EFF Surveillance Self-Defense (ssd.eff.org) — comprehensive, actively maintained, multi-language
  • Access Now Digital Security Helpline (accessnow.org/help) — direct human help for someone in an active crisis, not just docs
  • GreatFire.org — specifically tracks Chinese censorship, mirrors blocked sites, tests circumvention tools
  • Open Technology Fund (opentech.fund) — funds and vets many of the tools above, good index