Obligatory Shadowsocks Post

In case you didn’t know, the best way to get around the Great Firewall is with an obfuscated proxy like shadowsocks, not a VPN. Shadowsocks is amazing, the client is free and open source. You just have to bring your own server. Here are your options…

Self hosted / VPS

Set up your own shadowsocks server on any VPS from a provider, preferably one with high bandwidth + fast network I/O.

• Bandwagon
• Vultr
• Digital Ocean

Setting up your own shadowsocks server is pretty easy (here’s a tutorial), or if you prefer to use docker it’s also very simple, just run this command:

docker run -d --restart=always -p 1314:1314 ficapy/shadowsocks -s 0.0.0.0 -p 1314 -k YOUR_PASSWORD -m ENCRYPTION_METHOD

Replace YOUR_PASSWORD with the password you want, and ENCRYPTION_METHOD with the encryption method you want.

Also, you can replace 1314:1314 with whatever port you want to expose your proxy on. You might need to change this often, it’s a cat and mouse game.

Providers

Managing your own server is cool, but it’s hard to get serious performance out of it. If you need a fast daily driver, get an account with any of these specialized shadowsocks providers:

• Monocloud
• shadowsocks.ch
• caonima

Update 7/25/2021: for more up-to-date information about providers and clients, see Proxies and Such

Key visual: one of my mom’s pots