Psiphon VPN: Freedom Online

Psiphon is a censorship circumvention tool. That is a different purpose from a commercial VPN, and the distinction shapes everything about how it behaves.

Circumvention, not privacy

A commercial VPN sells privacy from your network operator. Psiphon exists to get a connection through a filter that is blocking it, and it will fall back through several transport protocols to do so. It is developed by a Canadian company with a long history in this space, and the client is open source.

If your goal is to keep your browsing from your ISP, a paid VPN with a published audit is the better tool. If your goal is reaching a service that is being blocked where you are, Psiphon is built specifically for that and works in conditions where ordinary VPNs are detected and dropped.

What to expect

• The free tier is funded by advertising and has a speed cap. It is usable for text and messaging, marginal for video.
• Connection speed varies substantially because traffic is routed through whichever server is currently reachable, not the fastest one.
• It can run in whole-device mode or route only selected apps, which is useful when you want one blocked app working without sending everything else through the tunnel.

Legal note

Circumvention tools are restricted or illegal in some jurisdictions. That is worth checking against where you actually are before installing.