UK, Russia, China, Turkey, VPN restrictions are escalating everywhere, my notes on what actually works now

General News
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VPN restrictions are escalating fast across multiple countries. Posting my notes since I had to figure this out for myself and the search results are total mess.

Quick reality check on where things stand, because half the headlines are wrong:

  • The UK has not banned VPNs outright. What did happen: Lords passed Amendment 92 in January 2026 targeting VPN provision to under-18s, Commons rejected it on 9 March (321-106), and the government has a consultation running with a statement expected July 2026. Direction of travel is clear. Age-verification under the Online Safety Act has been live since 25 July 2025, and that’s the bigger problem because ID-binding is something a VPN can’t solve.

  • Russia has been actively blocking VPN protocols via DPI for years. China, Iran, UAE the same. Turkey added more services to its block list through 2025-2026.

  • Platform-level detection got much worse. Consumer VPN IP ranges (Nord, Proton, Surfshark) are pre-flagged on most banking, payment, and social platforms. Even when the VPN connects, sites refuse you or send you into a captcha loop. In this case decentralized (unbannable) VPNs don’t solve anything.

  • If you already have a UK-based account on a site that age-gated you, switching to a different IP later doesn’t unlock it. The verification is bound to the account, you need to create new one in most cases.

The VPN is one tool being asked to solve three different problems (location, identity, encryption) and only ever really solved the first one. The problem is the actual VPN protocol that is being detected like Open VPN, Wireguard. Then Resi/DC IP range problem comes.

What works now:

A no-KYC eSIM that exits in another country. The eSIM gives the device a foreign mobile carrier IP at the network level. No VPN protocol involved, so DPI has nothing to fingerprint. The carrier IP is shared (CGNAT) with thousands of real phone users, so it doesn’t get banned the way a VPN range does, and it doesn’t get flagged as VPN/proxy by platforms. Since the eSIM is no-KYC, the ISP-level identity link is broken too. Use the eSIM as a hotspot to your laptop and your whole machine exits through a foreign carrier without running any VPN software.

Not a full privacy solution. Carrier still sees the eSIM IMEI, IP is still logged at the network layer, and the eSIM itself adds no encryption. What it does solve is the routing and identity-binding pieces that VPNs are failing at.

No-KYC eSIM providers with foreign IP routing that I tested:

  • Silent Link. Accepts XMR and major cryptocurrencies. Single exit IP option per plan, recently moved from Poland to UK. Most trusted name in the space, longest track record.
  • Nadanada. Accepts XMR and major cryptocurrencies. Three routing options at the moment (UK / Singapore / USA).
  • Voidmob. Accepts XMR and major cryptocurrencies. Global routing options with filtering.
  • PikaSim. Accepts XMR and major cryptocurrencies. Global routing options no filtering.

All four skip KYC, take crypto, and any of them can be used as a hotspot to your PC for full-machine routing without VPN software.

If your threat model needs actual encryption on top, layer a VLESS Xray setup or a encrypted proxy over the eSIM connection. For most personal use though, eSIM-only is enough to fix what VPNs are running into.

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Canada’s Bill C-22: Why Signal, Apple, and top VPNs are fighting the 'surveillance' law
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Thank you for your effort. There is an update on Russia. According to local lawmakers, next government initiative will result in full prohibition of foreign e-sim registration. Projected execution timeline is from 2 to 3 months.

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Please send over the source, for now you have to wait 24hrs and your eSIM starts working. Anyway, mobile proxies will be still a solution, in some cases Vless as well.

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It is all over local segment of internet. Here is one of the sources, Russian only.

Other than that IMO VLESS, proxies and similar solutions are useless against government issued traffic limitations, such as projected price increase per GB. That rules out basically all private individuals in favor of big corporate entities which get to keep their access to VPN and other candy.

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People shouldn’t go and spend money on expensive eSIM plans. You have to be realistic about the scale of the internet censorship in Russia and China, it just wouldn’t happen in the UK. The ruling party will loose the elections to the right before they could spend billions on a DPI infrastructure. And it’d be impossible to do overnight, as they’ll have to pass and enforce a ton of laws regulating backbone ISP providers.

In reality, none of that is happening in the UK currently.

Why would you obfuscate your traffic even further if the esim plan supposedly would bypass DPI?

This post is kind of silly :grimacing:

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