Shadowsocks Review 2024 - Keep in Mind Before Buying

Shadowsocks is an unusual entity, acting as a hybrid of a VPN and an unobserved shadow moving throughout cyberspace, somewhat similar to the elusive sock that went missing in your laundry.

Shadowsocks differs from a VPN in that it isn’t intended to protect your privacy nor to give you anonymity while surfing. For that, we suggest you opt for a premium vendor like ExpressVPN.

As a SOCKS5 proxy venture, the main purpose of Shadowsocks is to bypass censorship and it was designed with one goal in mind – finding a way through the complex censorship laws that are the fundamental bricks in the Great Firewall of China. Unlike a VPN, Shadowsocks is highly customizable and uses HTTPS to disguise your online movements. This technology doesn’t encrypt your traffic like a VPN, nor does it send all your traffic through a specific server. Instead, it works with a number of different TCP connections, making it much faster than its rivals and much more difficult for authorities to detect as a masked connection.

The advantages of Shadowsocks include its completely free and open-source nature, with a large community committed to continuous support. Shadowsocks is compatible with most platforms and fully operational on mobile devices and wireless networks. When it comes to bypassing geoblocks and governmental restrictions, it's hard to find a superior option. Additionally, Shadowsocks allows you to determine which portions of your online actions are concealed by the software and which remain unaffected. This means you can use websites only accessible in China while concurrently accessing blocked sites like Gmail.

Creeping stealthily through the underwear drawers of virtual reality, Shadowsocks makes your online activities invisible while it also remains virtually impossible to detect.

Compared to a VPN, Shadowsocks has both its advantages and disadvantages. If your primary goal is to navigate past blocks imposed by restrictive authorities, then Shadowsocks is perfect for the job, but if you want to secure your online privacy and remain anonymous, you’re better off turning to one of the more reputable VPNs available.

If you’re really inventive, however, you can also use Shadowsocks in conjunction with a VPN to improve speeds. Shadowsocks can also help you unblock popular streaming services in heavily-restricted areas. For example, if you are in China and want to gain a reliable and high-speed connection to Netflix, you can tunnel the server over Shadowsocks while using a VPN such as ExpressVPN to mask your location and gain access to the site.