- AdGuard has open sourced its custom VPN protocol
- TrustTunnel uses HTTP over TLS to mimic normal web traffic
- The open source code allows in-depth revision and wider use
AdGuard has open-sourced its custom VPN protocol, TrustTunnel, which is designed to improve privacy and avoid censorship by mimicking regular web traffic.
As VPN adoption continues to grow worldwide, governments and organizations have increased their efforts to identify and block VPN use more easily by implementing increasingly sophisticated censorship measures. In response, the best VPNs are also upping their game and beefing up their censorship-resistant features while innovating quickly to stay ahead of the market.
AdGuard follows suit and promises to make your VPN traffic virtually invisible thanks to its proprietary cryptographic protocol based on TLS. While TrustTunnel is already being used across AdGuard VPN apps, it is now available in open source to “use, run, tweak, extend and build upon,” the provider said.
How does AdGuard’s TrustTunnel work?
Unlike traditional VPN protocols such as WireGuard and OpenVPN, TrustTunnel uses HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 over TLS to mimic normal web traffic, reducing the likelihood of detection and regulation by ISPs and content providers – AdGuard explains in a blog post.
Governments, websites and services are becoming more adept at locating VPN-related traffic on widely used VPN protocols, although the actual data remains hidden.
As a result, they can more easily impose traffic restrictions and limit speeds to discourage VPN use for a myriad of reasons, from bandwidth to licensing to censorship. This makes it more likely that your traffic will be throttled when you use a VPN to share files or access restricted content.
AdGuard’s HTTP tunneling aims to make VPN connections look less like typical VPN traffic and more like normal web browsing, allowing users to access content that is subject to regional restrictions, blocked by governments or censored.
AdGuard’s move is more relevant than ever at a time when censorship is on the rise around the world, with countries like Russia passing laws that criminalize the dissemination of information related to circumventing censorship, including the use of VPNs.
From a technical point of view, the VPN provider also claims that by using both HTTP2 and HTTP3 as transport layers, AdGuard is able to ensure faster, uninterrupted connections, as each connection gets its own HTTP/2 (or HTTP/3) stream, reducing back-end congestion.
In addition, TrustTunnel allows users to create very specific routing rules: a user can decide which apps or websites should be routed through the VPN and which should not (for example, sending work traffic one way and personal traffic another), increasing user control and customization over how their Internet data is handled.
Other features include a real-time request log that provides full transparency on where the device is sending traffic, how routing rules are applied, and which connections are using the tunnel.
An open source feature
The protocol has been active with AdGuard for over a decade, but by making it open source, the ad blocking specialist is now looking to increase transparency and accessibility within the developer community.
Users can inspect TrustTunnel’s code, modify it, and incorporate it into their own projects, allowing the program to be audited, verified, and refined, strengthening trust among its users and potentially allowing other VPNs to adopt the tunnel.
The VPN provider has also released a client app for iOS and Android that allows advanced users to connect to their home servers while being protected by the TrustTunnel protocol.
The app is currently available on Google Play, where it has already received hundreds of downloads since its release on Monday.
With the launch, AdGuard joins the list of VPNs that offer similar technologies, such as Nord VPN, which last year launched its “revolutionary” NordWhisper protocol, designed specifically to bypass strict network filters. And we expect others to join the list soon.
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