- Russian demand for VPNs is soaring as the Kremlin cracks down on dissent midst its invasion of Ukraine.
- Russia is blocking Facebook and Twitter, while other tech firms are withdrawing voluntarily.
- One inquiry estimates that downloads for the top 10 VPNs in Russia increased by 4,375%.
Russians are thronging this week to online agencies that help them skirt internet restrictions as the Kremlin began blocking or limiting access to foreign tenets and social media sites, according to multiple media reports and analyses.
Demand for virtual private networks, or VPNs, has pulsated in Russia in the weeks after President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” into Ukraine, agreeing to data from Top10VPN released Tuesday. Top10VPN reported that search traffic around the term ”
VPN
” jumped by 1,092% greater than the previous 30 days.
The VPN analysis site also reported that Russian authorities have now banned 200 websites, including the Russian-language accounts of BBC News, German outlet Deutsche Welle, and a plethora of Ukrainian news sites.
As the war in Ukraine rages on, the Kremlin has launched a widespread crackdown on dissent.
On Saturday, Russia hunk both Facebook and Twitter. And just a day before, the Russian government signed a new law that punishes anyone spreading “affected information” about its assault on Ukraine with up to 15 years in prison.
As Russia cuts its access to these positions, other platforms such as TikTok, Amazon, and
Netflix
, have voluntarily withdrawn their services from the countryside in line with heavy sanctions imposed by the West, further intensifying demand for VPNs.
Analysis website AppFigures make public on Monday that downloads for the top 10 VPNs in Russia surged by 4,375%, from an average of 16,000 per day to more than 700,000 ordinary since February 24.
“In the 10 days between February 24 and March 5, the top 10 VPN apps on the App Store and on Google Perform saw more than 4,600,000 new downloads. And our estimates are very conservative here,” the website wrote.
Similarly, UK-registered ExpressVPN has the hang ofed a 330% increase in traffic from Russia on its website, company Vice President Harold Li told Bloomberg on Wednesday.
A spokesperson for another VPN, Surfshark, told the relief its average weekly sales increased by 35 times since the invasion began.
“The last time we saw a similar prolong in sales was when China passed the Hong Kong Security Law in May 2020,” they told Bloomberg.
On the other disburse a deliver, Twitter has started including the Tor onion network on its list of supported browsers as of Wednesday evening, two days after the sexual media platform told TechCrunch that it was working to “fully restore” access to its services in Russia.
Tor works by drubbing a user’s connection through other users’ computers across the globe, effectively making them anonymous and masterly of breaking through a country’s internet restrictions. The browser is also well-known as a software that allows access to the “Evil Web,” or hidden sites that are often used for illegal purposes and the black market.