Shadowsocks
An open-source encrypted proxy designed to bypass internet censorship by disguising traffic to slip past firewalls that block traditional VPNs.
Full Definition
Shadowsocks is an open-source, secure SOCKS5-based proxy protocol originally developed to circumvent internet censorship in China. It encrypts traffic between the client and the Shadowsocks server using modern ciphers (ChaCha20, AES-GCM) and makes the encrypted stream resemble random data or TLS traffic, defeating DPI-based blocking of VPN protocols. Unlike VPNs that route all device traffic through the tunnel, Shadowsocks is a SOCKS5 proxy that applications must be configured to use explicitly. It is widely used in high-censorship environments and by privacy-conscious users who need to bypass VPN blocks.
