Jan 2, 2022

The importance of using VPN in Afghanistan

Now that the Taliban have taken control of everything, privacy and safety on the web is more important than ever. This is especially important to those who are civil society activists, journalists and writers who want to avoid censorship and harassment from the Taliban. These two VPNs are working perfectly without putting too much constraints affecting the speed and quality of accessing the Internet. These are not free though but with one subscription you can connect five devices.

expressvpn*
nordvpn

It is important to shield ourselves against censorship and and control. One of the ways is to find alternatives to common Internet browsers we often use. Tor is a powerful browser, but it is also a VPN. You should first download it to your device and make sure it is connected. Then, everything you write or search while using Tor will bypass you local ISPs. For example, let's say you are in Kabul and you want to connect to the Internet via Roshan and Afghan Wireless or any other Afghan telecom, these companies give you a specific IP address. The IP address that is assigned to your computer or mobile phone by your local ISPs is your identification, you could easily be traced, recognized and whatever you search and see on the Internet can be seen. If you use VPN, you will taken to another region of the world and a different IP address will be assigned to you. Now all your information is encrypted and only the servers are able to know where you connected from, not the local ISPs.

Now, Tor connects you directly to its own servers, which is almost like a virtual world. Then you will be connected to the Internet. You can use Google, email and social networking sites. Local ISPs do not know that you are connected to the Internet through them because you are connected to the Internet from a third party. 

The advantage of using this browser and other VPNs is that it provides safety to you by providing you a detour, meaning it bypasses your local ISPs that might be in control of tyrannical governments whose will is to control and track down their citizens.

The disadvantage of this browser and VPN in general is that it slows down the Internet search because it bypasses the local ISP and connects to the Internet through a third party.

A Farsi version of this post with a little difference was already posted here on my Farsi blog.

* I was recently told by friends in Kabul that Roshan telecom has blocked expressvpn.

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