- AdGuard open-sourced its custom VPN protocol
- TrustTunnel uses HTTP over TLS to imitate normal web traffic
- Open source code enables in-depth auditing and wider adoption
AdGuard has open sourced its custom VPN protocol, TrustTunnel, designed to improve privacy and avoid censorship by resembling regular web traffic.
As VPN adoption continues to grow around the world, governments and organizations have stepped up efforts to more easily identify and block VPN use, implementing increasingly sophisticated censorship measures. In response, the best VPNs are also upping their game, strengthening 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 TLS-based cryptographic protocol. Although TrustTunnel is already used in AdGuard VPN applications, it is now available as open source to “use, run, modify, extend and develop,” the vendor said.
How does AdGuard 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 throttling by ISPs and content providers – explains AdGuard in a blog post.
Governments, websites, and services are becoming increasingly adept at identifying VPN-related traffic on widely used VPN protocols, even if the actual data remains hidden.
As a result, they can more easily impose traffic restrictions and limit speeds to discourage VPN use for a multitude of reasons, from bandwidth to licensing to censorship. This makes it more likely that your traffic will be capped when you use a VPN to share files or access restricted content.
AdGuard’s HTTP tunneling aims to make VPN connections less like distinctive VPN traffic and more like normal web browsing, allowing users to access content that is regionally restricted, blocked by governments, or censored.
AdGuard’s decision is more relevant than ever at a time when censorship is increasing around the world, with countries like Russia enacting laws that criminalize the dissemination of information related to censorship circumvention, including the use of VPNs.
From a technical perspective, the VPN provider also claims that by using both HTTP2 and HTTP3 as transport layers, AdGuard is able to guarantee faster and uninterrupted connections, as each connection gets its own HTTP/2 (or HTTP/3) stream, thereby reducing back-end congestion.
Additionally, TrustTunnel allows users to create very specific routing rules: a user can decide which applications or websites to route through the VPN and which not (for example, sending business traffic one way and personal traffic another), thereby increasing the user’s control and customization over how their Internet data is processed.
Other features include a real-time request log that provides full transparency into where the device is sending traffic, how routing rules are applied, and which connections are using the tunnel.
An open source movement
The protocol has been active with AdGuard for over a decade, but by making it open source, the ad blocker 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, thereby building 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 offers advanced users the ability 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 racked up hundreds of downloads since its release on Monday.
With this launch, AdGuard joins the list of VPNs offering similar technologies, such as Nord VPN, which last year launched its “revolutionary” NordWhisper protocol, designed specifically to bypass strict network filters. And we hope more will join the list soon.
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