How to circumvent the Great Firewall and connect to Tor from China?
In China, direct Tor connections are often blocked. Use Snowflake or WebTunnel to connect to the Tor network.
Below are reliable ways to obtain Tor Browser and connect from within China.
1. Get Tor Browser safely
To get an updated version of Tor Browser, try the Telegram bot first: @gettor_bot. If that doesn't work, you can send an email to gettor@torproject.org with the subject "windows", "macos", or "linux" for the respective operating system.
2. Try Connection Assist first
After the installation, Tor Browser will try to connect to the Tor network. If Tor is blocked in your location, Connection Assist will try to automatically connect using a bridge or Snowflake. But if that doesn't work, the second step will be to obtain a bridge that works in China.
3. Bridge options that work in China
There are following options to unblock Tor in China:
- WebTunnel: makes the traffic look like a regular HTTPS connection to a webpage server giving the impression that the user is simply browsing the web. To obtain WebTunnel bridges, visit our bridges website. From the "Advanced options" select "WebTunnel", from the dropdown, as the pluggable transport. Then click on "Get Bridges". Support for WebTunnel bridges is only available on Tor Browser for Desktop and Android.
- Snowflake: uses ephemeral proxies to connect to the Tor network. It's available in Tor Browser and other Tor powered apps like Orbot. You can select Snowflake from Tor Browser's built-in bridge menu.
- Private and unlisted obfs4 bridges: contact our Telegram Bot @GetBridgesBot and type
/obfs4
. Або надішліть електронний лист на адресу frontdesk@torproject.org із фразою "private bridge cn" у темі листа. If you are tech-savvy, you can run your own obfs4 bridge from outside China. Remember that obfs4 bridges distributed from the Tor bridges website, and built-in obfs4 bridges bundled in Tor Browser most likely won't work. - meek: makes it look like you are browsing a website instead of using Tor. However, because it has a bandwidth limitation, this option will be quite slow. You can select meek from Tor Browser's built-in bridges dropdown.
For obfs4 or WebTunnel bridges obtained via email or from the Bridges website, follow instructions to enter the bridge addresses in Tor Browser.
If one of these options above is not working, check your Tor logs and try another option.
4. Getting help
If you need help, you can contact our support team on Telegram Tor Project Support and Signal. Or send an email to frontdesk@torproject.org with the phrase "private bridge cn" in the subject of the email.