What if, overnight, your favorite apps disappeared from app stores? Or even worse, imagine waking up to find TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram blocked. While the United States TikTok ban is now effectively over, it offers valuable lessons about how online bans work and how they’re spreading.
Internet censorship isn’t just a problem in authoritarian states — it’s increasingly creeping into democratic societies too. Governments are finding new ways to control digital spaces, and virtual private networks (VPNs) are often people’s best defense. But how effective are they really? Here’s what you need to know:
- VPNs can overcome most types of bans to help you regain access to blocked content or apps.
- VPNs can help with DNS blocks, IP blocks, app store bans (with limitations), situations where a service has chosen to remove itself from a country, and many forms of blunter enforcement.
- VPNs can’t help with total internet shutdown or your phone being physically seized and searched.
In this article, we’ll look at:
- How governments (try to) ban online services
- How a VPN can overcome some types of bans
- Most banned apps globally
- US TikTok ban — VPN unable to help
- DR Congo TikTok and X bans — VPN can help
- Final thoughts — VPNs will defeat most app bans
How governments (try to) ban online services
Governments trying to restrict access to online services have several options. In general, the more far-reaching and effective their methods, the greater the economic and social disruption that will result. Options available to governments include:
- DNS blocks
- IP blocks
- App store bans
- Corporate fines and asset seizures of companies
- Personal fines and other penalties
- Great Firewall of China
- Shut down the internet
DNS blocks
The simplest, cheapest, and most common method of enforcing online bans is requiring domestic internet service providers (ISPs) to block all connections to the banned service. To comply, ISPs usually block DNS queries (which translate human-friendly domain names into the numeric IP addresses used by computers) to the banned service’s domains.
DNS blocks make accessing specific websites harder for casual internet users but are quite easy to bypass. Simply typing a website’s IP address into your browser’s URL bar rather than its human-friendly domain name is sufficient to defeat such blocks.
Using international third-party DNS revolvers is also an easy but effective tactic, although this can lead to the DNS services themselves becoming blocked. VPNs are also highly effective against DNS blocks, as the VPN service resolves your DNS queries instead of your ISP.
During Turkey’s 2014 Twitter and YouTube crackdown(yeni pencere), activists promoted Google DNS as a way to bypass the ban. Google later confirmed blocks to Google DNS(yeni pencere).
Learn more about how DNS works
IP blocks
The next step up from DNS blocking is to order domestic ISPs to implement firewalls that block all access to IP addresses belonging to the target service(s). Although more effective than simple DNS blocking, IP blocks require more infrastructure resources,and are therefore more costly) for ISPs to perform. IP blocks are fairly easy to evade with a VPN.
Some restrictive governments, such as China and Pakistan(yeni pencere), go further than simple IP blocks. Instead, they use state-controlled internet infrastructure — usually routing all internet connections via ISPs to government-run servers that filter undesirable IP addresses.
In addition to IP blocks, some governments use deep packet inspection (DPI) techniques to detect traffic that uses obfuscation measures to bypass the IP blocks. This kind of IP blocking is rare, as it’s very expensive and is a too obvious display of authoritarian power.
VPNs are highly effective at bypassing IP blocks, but this can lead to VPNs themselves being blocked. In most cases, good VPN services (such as Proton VPN) can easily bypass VPN blocks, although exceptions exist (notably China).
App store bans
Most people these days access the internet using their phones. Governments can quite easily restrict access to services for a large section of their population by requiring popular app stores to stop hosting their apps.
Throughout much of the world, this space is dominated by two US-based companies — Apple and Google. While the US government can order these companies to comply, others can exert considerable pressure to get what they want.
For example, Apple has capitulated to Chinese demands(yeni pencere) to remove certain apps from the Chinese version of the App Store to retain access to the hugely lucrative Chinese market. Google has so far resisted (most(yeni pencere)) such demands, and most of its services (including the Play Store) remain blocked in China(yeni pencere).
App store bans are not intended to completely block all access to a service — if you already have the app installed on your device, you can continue to use it. Desktop users are largely unaffected, and tech-savvy Android users can download APKs (which can be unsafe, but reputable APK hosting platforms exist).
However, these bans can exert a chilling effect on the use of a service, particularly those that rely on community engagement for their popularity. After all, what’s the point of a social media app that most of your friends find too difficult to use?
It’s worth noting that you can use a VPN to register a new App Store or Play Store account in another country where the app isn’t banned. However, the user experience of doing this is so poor that it won’t be a solution for most people. You’ll also be limited to downloading free apps only.
Corporate fines and asset seizures of companies
Governments can fine companies and seize assets if they don’t comply with government demands. This usually happens when a government doesn’t want to actually ban a service, but wants changes made to it. Good examples include the EU fining companies for breach of GDPR(yeni pencere) and the UK’s recent demands(yeni pencere) that companies compromise end-to-end encryption (E2EE) in their apps.
The result, however, is that affected companies may choose to withdraw access(yeni pencere) to their services in affected countries rather than comply with the demands. With the notable exception of Google in China, this situation remains uncommon. However, as governments around the world step up their censorship efforts and continue their assault on E2EE, the more likely these self-imposed “bans” will become common in the future.
How difficult it will be to access apps and services that are no longer available in this way using VPNs depends almost entirely on how hard the owners of the services wish to make it (which will be influenced by how likely they are to suffer repercussions for lax enforcement).
Personal fines and other penalties
Although rare, governments can declare the use of certain apps illegal. They can then enforce these laws via fines or other criminal penalties. VPN apps used to evade these laws are invariably also criminalized, although their use can be difficult to detect if obfuscation technologies are used (such as Proton VPN’s Stealth protocol — see below).
In an alarming trend, soldiers and police in certain countries have begun physically inspecting(yeni pencere) citizens’ smartphones to ensure banned apps aren’t installed. Enforcing these bans isn’t just difficult — it’s a dire measure from governments that can’t impose more technical solutions (such as DNS or IP blocking). When a country resorts to manual inspections, it shows how desperate it is to control access to information — and how fragile that control is.
Great Firewall of China
The infamous Great Firewall of China (GFW) primarily uses blocking techniques already discussed above, notably DNS and IP blocking, together with advanced DPI techniques. However, it deserves special mention because it combines these into the most far-ranging and sophisticated system of internet censorship ever devised.
There are currently no reliable ways to consistently bypass the GFW, although some methods may be effective some of the time. Anecdotal reports suggest Proton VPN works well in China, but results will likely be inconsistent, and we can’t make any guarantees. The Tor anonymity network, used in conjunction with Tor Bridges(yeni pencere) can also be an effective way to bypass the GFW.
Learn more about the Great Firewall of China
Shut down the internet
As an act of desperation, governments can force all domestic ISPs to simply turn off the internet. This happened in Bangladesh(yeni pencere) in 2024 when the government imposed a 10-day internet blackout following a series of deadly anti-government riots during which the government also deployed security forces and imposed curfews.
Shutting down the internet in this way inflicts huge losses on the economy, severely impacting sectors such as banking, e-commerce, and communications. In Bangladesh, losses due to the shutdown are estimated(yeni pencere) to be BDT 20 billion (USD 165.5 million). As a consequence, such measures are rare and invariably have a limited duration.
The only way to access the internet during a total shutdown is by using satellite phones or international SIM cards.
How a VPN can overcome some types of ban
A VPN creates an encrypted connection between your device and a VPN server run by a VPN service such as Proton VPN. The VPN app then routes all connections from your device through this “VPN tunnel”. This includes DNS queries, which your VPN provider resolves rather than your ISP (as usually happens).
Because the data sent through the VPN tunnel is securely encrypted, your ISP (and, by extension, your government) can’t see your data’s content or which websites you visit. All it can see is the IP address of the VPN server you connected to.
Learn more about how a VPN works
What an ISP can’t see, it can’t block, which is why VPNs are effective anti-censorship tools. When connected to a VPN, you can access the internet as if you’re in the country where the VPN server is located. Repressive governments, of course, know this, so their usual response is to try to block access to VPNs.
The types of bans a VPN can overcome can be summarized as follows:
Proton VPN has developed several tools and features designed to help bypass such blocks:
Alternative routing
Our alternative routing feature helps you access our service when connections to our servers are blocked. If our software cannot connect directly to our servers, it routes your connection through third-party services (such as AWS) that are unlikely to be blocked.
Learn more about alternative routing(yeni pencere)
Stealth protocol
Based on WireGuard® tunneled over TLS, our Stealth protocol can bypass most firewalls and VPN blocking methods (including many deep packet inspection techniques).
Learn more about Stealth protocol
Discrete apps for Android
To help the Proton community stay safe in places where authorities might physically seize and search your phone, our Android app allows you to replace the Proton VPN app icon with an innocuous-looking icon that’s unlikely to be noticed if your Android phone is searched.
Learn more about discrete apps for Android
Download our apps from GitHub (including APKs to bypass Play Store – also F-Droid)
You can download our Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android apps from GitHub(yeni pencere). This can be critical if access to the Proton VPN website or the Google Play Store is blocked. You can also find our Android app on F-Droid(yeni pencere).
[Get Proton VPN now]
Facebook and WhatsApp are the top two banned apps globally
Governments around the world are keen to restrict their citizens’ access to information or their ability to use social media apps to organize opposition to them. They ban apps and services they see as a threat, as shown in the table below. In some cases, bans are limited to government employees on national defense grounds (which explains many of the “partial bans” listed on the chart).
A VPN wouldn’t help much with the US TikTok ban
In April 2024, the US House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act(yeni pencere). Also known as the “TikTok bill”, this legislation demanded that TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, sell the video-sharing platform to a non-Chinese buyer before January 19, 2025, or be banned in the US. It failed to meet this condition.
Before the January 19 deadline, TikTok had announced that it would fully withdraw access to its service from US consumers. Had it done this, you would have needed a VPN to access it. However, after just 14 hours offline, TikTok reversed its decision and continued to be available to US users with access to its app. This came after President Donald Trump abandoned his earlier opposition(yeni pencere) to TikTok in light of his newfound popularity on the platform.
Until February 13, the TikTok app wasn’t available to download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. This meant:
- If you already had the app installed on your device, you could continue to use it.
- Android users could download the TikTok APK from third-party sources (anyone doing this must be careful and choose a reputable source).
- You could still access TikTok via its website, although this version is much less fully featured than the app.
- You could use a VPN to register a new profile on a non-US version of an app store (but this does not provide a great experience).
In India(yeni pencere), the government has ordered telecom companies to block access to TikTok at the SIM card level. This can be overcome by removing the SIM card and connecting to the internet via WiFi using a VPN. However, the US did not attempt to enforce the ban to this level, and the TikTok app is now available on both app stores(yeni pencere).
VPNs helped people in the DR Congo overcome TikTok and X bans
In early February 2025, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) banned(yeni pencere) TikTok and X in response to escalating conflicts in its eastern regions.
The government cited “technical reasons” for the suspension, aiming to curb the spread of misinformation during this volatile period. However, this move faced criticism from various quarters, including Bintou Keita, the UN Special Representative in the DRC, who labeled it a “grave violation of the right to information”.
The ban lasted around a week, with access restored on February 10, 2025. Despite the government’s initial justification, the suspension drew widespread criticism from both local and international communities, who viewed it as an infringement on freedom of expression and access to information.
In response to the restrictions, Proton VPN saw a 7,000% surge in signups from the DRC during the shutdown. The Congolese authorities responded by blocking access to the Google Play Store to prevent people from downloading VPN apps. As noted earlier, you can always download the Proton VPN Android app from sources other than the Play Store.
Final thoughts — VPNs will deafest most app bans
VPNs aren’t just tools for accessing blocked websites — they’re many people’s front-line defense against government overreach. Whether it’s journalists reporting under authoritarian regimes or everyday people trying to access uncensored news, VPNs protect free speech and digital privacy. They’re not just about convenience — they help people protect their rights.
But not even a VPN can help during a complete internet shutdown or prevent your phone from being physically searched for banned apps.
If you’re determined enough, you can use a VPN to change your app store region, but for most people, the hoops you need to jump through make this an impractical solution. A better solution for Android users is downloading the APK from a reputable source.
For the vast majority of blocks, however, a VPN provides an easy and effective way to access blocked apps and services.
