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

1308 points rickybule | 4 comments | 28 Aug 25 16:43 UTC | HN request time: 0.008s | 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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77pt77 ◴[29 Aug 25 02:24 UTC] No.45059374[source]▶
> cost is flexible but probably 20-30$ per month minimum in hosting

Like I've written here.

VPS in EU with 2GB RAM, 40 GB disk and >1TB a month of traffic go for $10 PER YEAR!

https://billing.chunkserve.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0

https://my.servitro.com/cart.php?a=view

https://manager.ouiheberg.com/cart.php?a=confproduct&i=0

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1. majorchord ◴[30 Aug 25 19:12 UTC] No.45077195[source]▶
In my experience, not only do a lot of sites block access from datacenter/cloud IPs, but you will routinely encounter captcha loops.
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2. 77pt77 ◴[31 Aug 25 02:48 UTC] No.45079914[source]▶
This is true, keeps getting worse, but depends heavily on the datacenter/IP.
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3. ranger_danger ◴[31 Aug 25 13:19 UTC] No.45082957[source]▶
I've also had online shopping orders flagged or unable to buy at all by doing this. They seem to consider traffic as automatically suspicious when it's not through a residential ISP.

Although with the amount of "compromised" residential hosts these days that are for hire through grey-market proxy dealers, I don't know what to think anymore.

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4. 77pt77 ◴[31 Aug 25 15:25 UTC] No.45083900{3}[source]▶
Also true, but also happens in workplaces.

It will be even worse using a normal VPN so no solution there.

Also, if you're signed in it will be fine.