Basically, it’s a special Socket Secure (SOCKS5) proxy. This “is an open-source proxy application, widely used in mainland China to circumvent internet censorship.” It is an open-source anti-Great Firewall tool/protocol/server created by a Chinese developer.
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This wraps your VPN data inside an additional layer of SSH or TLS/SSL encryption.Īs DPI techniques are unable to penetrate this “outer” layer of encryption, they are unable to detect the OpenVPN encryption “inside.” For more details about this technique, please see my guide on How to Bypass VPN Blocks. If switching to TCP port 443 is not enough to evade censorship or otherwise hide the fact that you are using a VPN, Mullvad offers SSH and SSL (stunnel) tunneling. TCP port 443 is therefore the favored port for evading VPN blocks. This makes it much harder to spot using deep packet inspection (DPI). It is therefore very rare for this port to be blocked.Īs an added bonus, VPN traffic on TCP port 443 is routed inside the Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption used by HTTPS. Without HTTPS, no form of online commerce, such as shopping or banking, would be possible. This is the port used by HTTPS, the encrypted protocol that secures websites. The most common use for this is to run OpenVPN traffic over Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) port 443. Mullvad allows you to counter such measures by running the VPN over almost any port (a few ports are blocked to address spam and security issues). It is rare for VPNs to be blocked, but it happens in places such as China and Iran (although this is usually only partially effective). This is not a major problem at present, but kudos to Mullvad for looking to the future here. Most other good VPN services simply disable IPv6 in order to prevent IP leaks. It is also worth highlighting the fact that Mullvad is the only VPN service I know of to properly route IPv6 connections through the VPN tunnel. You can connect up to five devices to Mullvad at once, which is generous.
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On the plus side, all Mullvad’s servers are bare-metal servers (not Virtual Private Server instances) under the close control of Mullvad. Compared to other, more commercial services, this is somewhat limited, and may restrict Mullvad’s usefulness for users in places such as Asia. Most servers are in Europe, but Mullvad also has servers in North America, Australia, and the UK.