If I was on Windows 7 and couldn't change my OS, what VPN should I use to bypass censorship? If I shouldn't use a VPN, what would be a better way to bypass censorship?
Unless it's an air gapped machine run for a specific reason, nobody should run Win7 in 2026. If it's connected to the internet, you are doing that at your own peril. Obligatory switch to Linux.
"Censorship" is probably not quite the right word here, is it? You're thinking more along the lines of privacy. Censorship is what a government does. And that would affect the content of the internet more than anything else you come in contact with. And that is roughly the same whether you run your browser on a Win7 or Win11 machine (save maybe some more modern features the outdated browsers cannot do).
If you're worried about the spectre of age verification, I would suggest switching to Linux and investing into a VPN.
Censorship has many degrees to it, and your needs would be determined by your threat model. Once you are more aware of what you need, finding proper support should be easier. Otherwise you will wind up getting advice too extreme for your practical purposes.
Github holds plenty of examples to bypass chinese great firewall. I would say you use a vps and set up those proxyies, a while ago it was shadowsocks. Today, idk. Maybe amneziawg. Not sure if you can make the clients work on windows 7, in any case just get a travel router set it up there and use that as the filter to your connection. Break down the problem into pieces. And yes, that router and/ or vps will have Linux (:
It's unlikely any commercial VPN works on it. I tried three free-tier ones, Proton, Privado and Windscribe on Windows 8.1. Their last client versions supporting the OS are all already unsupported by the servers.
Air vpn's client was working as of about two years ago
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If I was on Windows 7 and couldn't change my OS, what VPN should I use to bypass censorship? If I shouldn't use a VPN, what would be a better way to bypass censorship? | Spyke
11 replies
Unless it's an air gapped machine run for a specific reason, nobody should run Win7 in 2026. If it's connected to the internet, you are doing that at your own peril. Obligatory switch to Linux.
"Censorship" is probably not quite the right word here, is it? You're thinking more along the lines of privacy. Censorship is what a government does. And that would affect the content of the internet more than anything else you come in contact with. And that is roughly the same whether you run your browser on a Win7 or Win11 machine (save maybe some more modern features the outdated browsers cannot do).
If you're worried about the spectre of age verification, I would suggest switching to Linux and investing into a VPN.
Not sure why you got down voted . It was an excellent reply
I'd recommend downloading Tails and flashing that to a USB stick, then booting from it. It won't touch your Windows 7 installation.
Censorship has many degrees to it, and your needs would be determined by your threat model. Once you are more aware of what you need, finding proper support should be easier. Otherwise you will wind up getting advice too extreme for your practical purposes.
Obligatory 'just use linux'
This is a good place to start -> https://ssd.eff.org/
“SURVEILLANCE
SELF-DEFENSE
TIPS, TOOLS, AND HOW-TOS FOR SAFER ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS
A PROJECT OF THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION
wireguard
is this china mainland? or some other country?
The "Freedom" country.
USA? then you can just use wireguard since it's not blocked by the government
(china mainland for example blocks wireguard protocol)
get the wireguard config from whatever vpn service you sign up for (airvpn, proton, mullvad all provides wg config)
Github holds plenty of examples to bypass chinese great firewall. I would say you use a vps and set up those proxyies, a while ago it was shadowsocks. Today, idk. Maybe amneziawg. Not sure if you can make the clients work on windows 7, in any case just get a travel router set it up there and use that as the filter to your connection. Break down the problem into pieces. And yes, that router and/ or vps will have Linux (:
It's unlikely any commercial VPN works on it. I tried three free-tier ones, Proton, Privado and Windscribe on Windows 8.1. Their last client versions supporting the OS are all already unsupported by the servers.
Air vpn's client was working as of about two years ago