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Ask HN: The government of my country blocked VPN access. What should I use?

1309 points rickybule | 3 comments | 28 Aug 25 16:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.526s | source

Indonesia is currently in chaos. Earlier today, the government blocked access to Twitter & Discord knowing news spread mainly through those channels. Usually we can use Cloudflare's WARP to avoid it, but just today they blocked the access as well. What alternative should we use?
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Humorist2290 ◴[28 Aug 25 17:04 UTC] No.45054496[source]▶
- Tor. Pros: Reasonably user friendly and easy to get online, strong anonymity, free. Cons: a common target for censorship, not very fast, exit nodes are basically universally distrusted by websites.

- Tailscale with Mullvad exit nodes. Pros: little setup but not more than installing and configuring a program, faster than Got, very versatile. Cons: deep packet inspection can probably identify your traffic is using Mullvad, costs some money.

- Your own VPSs with Wireguard/Tailscale. Pros: max control, you control how fast you want it, you can share with people you care about (and are willing to support). Cons: the admin effort isn't huge but requires some skill, cost is flexible but probably 20-30$ per month minimum in hosting.

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zargon ◴[28 Aug 25 17:15 UTC] No.45054628[source]▶
> 20-30$ per month minimum in hosting

Typo? Wireguard-capable VPSes are available for $20-$30 per year. (https://vpspricetracker.com/ is a good site for finding them.)

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1. Humorist2290 ◴[28 Aug 25 17:20 UTC] No.45054684[source]▶
I mean multiple VPSs for redundancy. Contabo is maybe the cheapest I've seen and it's like 3$ mtl for the smallest?
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2. notpushkin ◴[29 Aug 25 03:38 UTC] No.45059885[source]▶
Sure, but ten servers is a bit too much redundancy, no? Depending on how many people you want to share it with it might make sense though.
3. prmoustache ◴[29 Aug 25 08:27 UTC] No.45061589[source]▶
You don't need multiple vps at all time and can start them dynamically using the vps provider api.

I regularly spawn temporary vps for a few hours to use as socks proxy and view sporting event from my country of origin. There is no reason one couldn't write a script that can spin a VPS choosing a provider and country randomly from a list of supported providers.