Privacy tooling
What is Shadowsocks?
Shadowsocks is an encrypted proxy protocol designed to be difficult to identify by traffic analysis. It is widely used where VPN protocols are actively blocked, since its traffic does not present a recognisable handshake.
Why Shadowsocks matters
It is widely used where VPN protocols are actively blocked, since its traffic does not present a recognisable handshake.
Shadowsocks in practice
When running Shadowsocks, you manage a lightweight proxy daemon on your instance. You set encryption and a password in the config, then point clients at the server's IP and port. You would monitor connection logs to see who is using it. The cost of a mistake is misconfiguration that leaks your traffic or makes the proxy undetectable. Use the VNC console to fix a broken config without a ticket.
What people get wrong about Shadowsocks
People assume Shadowsocks is a VPN. It is not. It only proxies traffic you route through it; it does not tunnel all system traffic like OpenVPN or WireGuard. Correct: you explicitly configure which applications use the SOCKS5 proxy.
Shadowsocks — common questions
How is Shadowsocks different from a VPN?
A VPN tunnels all network traffic, while Shadowsocks is an encrypted proxy that handles only traffic explicitly sent to it. This makes it lighter and less detectable, but you must configure each app to use it.
Can I run Shadowsocks on any of your plans?
Yes. All plans include full root access, so you can install Shadowsocks. You can boot a custom ISO if you prefer a specific OS. The instance gets an IPv4 address and a routed IPv6 /64, both routable to the proxy.
More from privacy tooling
- WireGuard
- WireGuard is a VPN protocol implemented in about 4,000 lines of kernel code with a fixed modern cipher suite.
- OpenVPN
- OpenVPN is a mature userspace VPN protocol with configurable ciphers that can run over TCP or UDP.
- Tor
- Tor routes traffic through three volunteer-operated relays chosen so that no single relay knows both the origin and the destination.
- Tor exit node
- A Tor exit node is the final relay in a circuit, which connects to the destination and therefore appears to be the source of the traffic.
- Onion service
- An onion service is a service reachable only through Tor, whose address is derived from its public key rather than registered with any authority.
- SOCKS5
- SOCKS5 is a proxy protocol that forwards arbitrary TCP and UDP traffic, with optional authentication.
- No-logs policy
- A no-logs policy is a commitment not to retain records of user activity such as connection metadata, netflow or DNS queries.