Snowflake is a pluggable transport developed by the Tor Project that wraps Tor traffic to look like a WebRTC video call, making it hard for censors to block. It is built directly into Tor Browser and Orbot for users in restricted regions. A companion browser extension lets volunteers donate bandwidth as Snowflake proxies.
Snowflake
Official website snowflake.torproject.org
Our take
Snowflake solves a specific and important problem: getting Tor working in places that block it. The WebRTC disguise is harder to fingerprint and block than older transports like obfs4. The catch is it is not a standalone app but a transport layer, so it only helps if you are already using Tor Browser or Orbot. The volunteer proxy extension is a meaningful way to support censored users with minimal effort. Not relevant for users in uncensored regions who just want privacy.
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Snowflake alternatives
Tor Tor, short for The Onion Router, is for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more…
Orbot Free, open-source Tor VPN app for Android and iOS that routes device traffic through the Tor network. Supports per-app Tor routing and access to .onion services on Android.
Lokinet Uses Oxen Service Nodes (also used by Session ) as routers to safeguard user privacy and anonymity.
I2P The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer that allows for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by…
Hyphanet Hyphanet, formerly Freenet, is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant, anonymous communication. It uses a decentralized distributed data store to keep and deliver information, and has a…
Retroshare Peer-to-peer communication and file sharing app based on a friend-to-friend network built on GNU Privacy Guard (GPG). Optionally, peers may communicate certificates and IP…