'Iranians are resilient; they always find ways to speak:' How Iranians are overcoming unprecedented internet censorship

As a wave of mass anti-government protests swept through Iran at the start of 2026, the regime's response followed a familiar pattern: plunging citizens into near-total digital darkness by cutting off domestic and international communication. What began on January 8 has since been characterized as "one of the most severe blackouts in history."

Six weeks after Iran was disconnected from the world, internet connectivity has been slowly restored. However, the latest data confirms that Iran's internet is far from back to normal — and it potentially never will be.

Reports that the government plans to introduce a permanent whitelisting system to police the internet suggest this may only be the beginning of a major shift in Iran's digital landscape.

In an environment where VPN services are increasingly important in allowing the country's 90 million residents to continue basic online activities, experts told TechRadar that these tools are becoming "increasingly harder to use."

But Azam Jangravi, an Iranian cybersecurity professional, says that won't deter citizens. "Iranians are resilient; they always find ways to speak, even in the dark," she told me the day after the shutdown began.

With residents now reportedly moving from commercial VPNs to more sophisticated circumvention tools that are more resistant to modern blocking and filtering techniques, she appears to be right.

However, the fight for internet freedom in Iran cannot be won through resilience alone. Three censorship-resistant VPN alternatives are gaining traction, and there are ways for the global community to help make them even more effective.

1. Psiphon and Psiphon Conduit: "More than a VPN"

Describing itself as "more than a VPN," Psiphon appears to be the primary tool helping Iranians stay connected. Its strength lies in its core philosophy: unlike traditional virtual private networks (VPNs), where privacy is the main goal and circumvention is a secondary benefit, Psiphon is designed specifically to bypass censorship.

As Keith McManamen from Psiphon explains, the software is built on a multi-protocol architecture that performs real-time diagnosis of network conditions.

"We use transports designed to stay below the radar — protocols that look like random noise or common web traffic. We are also constantly innovating parameters like packet size and interval based on what we see in the network," he told TechRadar.

While Iranians have used the free-to-use service for years, the number of people using the app has skyrocketed following the latest wave of restrictions. McManamen noted that the tool gained 500,000 additional users between January 1 and January 7 alone. At its peak, the platform reached nearly 9.6 million daily Iranian users.

"When VPNs start to work less well, people are accustomed to falling back on Psiphon as a very resilient tool when the conditions get more difficult," McManamen says.

Another key distinction from commercial VPNs is Psiphon's complementary tool, Psiphon Conduit. This app enables volunteers to turn their devices into relays that people in need can use to bridge their connection to the open internet.

While it is easy for censors to block major cloud providers or data centers, McManamen explains that "it is much harder to play 'whack-a-mole' with residential IP addresses from regular internet users."

Thousands among the Iranian diaspora are now running Conduit relays to help those inside the country. However, the demand within the country remains staggering, with Psiphon recording as many as 26 million daily Conduit connections from the country at the height of the disruptions.

2. Tor Browser and Snowflake: The perfect combo

The Tor Browser is an open-source, free-to-use tool designed for circumvention and anonymity. It enables users to evade internet blocks by routing traffic through three layers of encryption — a process often referred to as onion routing.

While Tor is well-known among those living under strict censorship, its built-in pluggable transport, Snowflake, is what's currently helping Iranians stay online. Much like Psiphon Conduit, Snowflake allows users in censored networks to connect to the Tor network through volunteer-run proxies.

Snowflake usage in Iran spiked starting January 22, with levels remaining well above normal. "At the moment, it seems that Snowflake is one of the best tools currently available to connect to the internet in Iran," Tor told TechRadar.

The team explained that Snowflake is particularly effective because it uses the WebRTC protocol to make a user's internet traffic look like a video call. Since governments, businesses, and individuals rely heavily on video conferencing, blocking this traffic entirely would come at a significant economic and social cost.

Snowflake also mitigates the risk of disruption by creating hundreds of thousands of "ephemeral" proxies. Most of these run on home internet connections with frequently changing IP addresses. This constant rotation, Tor told TechRadar, "makes large-scale blocking ineffective."

The team is also seeing a growing number of Iranian users successfully using WebTunnel bridges. This censorship-resistant tool can be requested via Tor's Telegram bot (@GetBridgesBot) or through the project's official bridges website.

3. Lantern and Unbounded: The power of proxy-less

Lantern is another free, VPN-like tool popular in Iran, which also saw a sudden spike in usage at the end of January. While Lantern’s CEO, Adam Fisk, notes that the numbers are not yet at the levels recorded during the 2022 protests, the tool is currently "hitting about 200,000 daily active users in Iran."

At a glance, the Lantern app looks similar to a traditional VPN, but Fisk maintains that the software operates differently under the hood. Most notably, Lantern can detect if it can access sites through a "proxyless" technique.

Fisk explains that this is particularly effective for bypassing blocks at the SNI (Server Name Indication) level. Lantern uses "TLS record fragmentation" to split the initial TLS handshake into multiple records. Because the SNI is also split across these fragments, it can often slip past automated filters without needing a full proxy connection.

Echoing Psiphon and Tor, Lantern’s efficiency is boosted by a volunteer-driven tool: Lantern Unbounded. Fisk claims it takes only a few lines of code for any website owner to embed the Unbounded widget, allowing visitors to become instant proxies in their browser with a single click.

"The idea is to really lower the barrier to becoming a proxy. Anyone with a browser can click a button and help out right away," Fisk told TechRadar. He added that the team performed a major refactor last year which broke backwards compatibility, noting: "That is why you don't see everyone talking about Unbounded in Iran right now."

These compatibility issues are expected to be resolved when the new version of the Lantern app is officially released. A beta launch is expected soon on the provider’s GitHub page, promising to do "even more things differently" than traditional VPNs.

US funding are shrinking

Psiphon, Tor, and Lantern are all tools specifically designed to help people living under harsh censorship navigate restrictions and reclaim their digital rights.

Because they provide essential access, they are all free to use. These organizations are able to maintain their services through the support of third parties — the most significant of which is the US-based Open Technology Fund (OTF).

However, that support is currently in jeopardy. The OTF is among several internet freedom organizations impacted by budget cuts and funding freezes directed by the Trump administration throughout the past 12 months.

As demand for these tools recently surged from 7.5 million to 25 million users in Iran, the OTF has warned that millions of Iranians could lose access to vital VPN services "as soon as next week" if US agencies do not release the $10 million required to handle the massive spike in traffic.

This funding crisis comes shortly after a report from The Wall Street Journal revealed that US officials confirmed the State Department redirected a portion of its internet freedom budget to acquire Starlink terminals for shipment into Iran.

This pivot has drawn criticism from digital rights experts. While satellite internet provides a connection when terrestrial networks are down, experts warn that operating Starlink without a VPN-like tool makes users easier for authorities to geolocate.

In contrast, US-funded VPNs offer a more anonymous, scalable, and cost-effective lifeline for the broader population.

Towards whitelisting: what's next for circumvention tech?

As VPN censorship intensifies, Iranians are increasingly turning toward sophisticated circumvention tools that go beyond commercial services. Psiphon, Tor, and Lantern have proven better equipped to battle aggressive blocking and filtering systems — and they offer the global community a concrete way to help.

But what about the future? Can these tools beat a nationwide whitelisting system once it is fully implemented?

While it is perhaps too early to say for certain, the Tor Project expects Snowflake to continue functioning under a whitelist, provided that blocking efforts remain primarily focused on data centers.

The team is closely monitoring the situation. "Tor's community team connects with people on the ground, which helps us test and identify the most effective technologies for each censorship scenario," the team told TechRadar.

Adam Fisk of Lantern also feels optimistic, arguing that despite the massive technical challenge, "there's always been some loophole in these shutdowns." He notes that Lantern will continue to adapt its protocols as it has for years.

Meanwhile, Psiphon confirmed it is developing new techniques, such as "whitelisted SNI." This involves emulating requests to domains the team knows are already accessible — a tactic that has already proven effective in Russia.

That said, Psiphon believes both Iranians and the developers of censorship-resistant technologies still have a window to adapt. "The fact that Conduit is working is proof that a strict whitelisting system is not in place [right now]," McManamen says, adding that a national whitelist would inevitably cause catastrophic collateral damage to the Iranian economy.

Ultimately, the future of a free internet in Iran may depend on whether the regime is willing to pay that economic price — and whether the international community continues to fund the digital lifelines that keep Iranians connected.

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