How to Unblock Reddit

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When I first found out about Reddit, I was using Digg–which at the time, was the better of the two news aggregation platforms. Now, in 2016, Reddit has become one of the biggest communities and news aggregation websites on the internet.

Reddit has also become more of a forum community with thousands of forum communities called “subreddits” where users can discuss, post links, and share information. You can find huge communities on Reddit, whether that be gaming, political, or even picture based communities. Some subreddits have more than 20,000 active users at a time!

Why is Reddit blocked in some countries?

This online discourse through vast amounts of conversations is great, but a lot of countries with restrictions on internet free speech have blocked Reddit. Countries like China, Indonesia, Russia, Iran, Egypt, and many others currently block or have blocked Reddit at one time or another. These countries do not like people spreading their political ideals, and in some cases, these countries jail those who speak out in online discourse.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to unblock Reddit with a VPN so you can always gain access to Reddit regardless of your location.

What is a VPN?

If you are new to the term VPN, check out this in-depth guide here for our ultimate guide on what a VPN is, who it is for, and why you might need it. For now, I can explain that when you send your internet traffic through a VPN, you connect to a remote server that gives you a shared IP and encrypts your data.  Various VPNs have different levels of security since not all VPNs use the same protocols, encryption strength, or even server type.

Aren’t VPNs Blocked in Censored Countries through DPI?

Countries that enforce censorship and control internet behavior can block access to websites like Reddit quite easily. The way it works is that most countries that actively block internet content control internet service providers themselves. The ISPs in these countries simply block domains based on governmental requests.

This is why users use VPNs to get around ISP blockages. However, the only bad news is that these countries are starting to block VPNs too. Blocking a VPN is quite difficult, but countries like China have become experts at it by using large-scale deep packet inspection.

Deep packet inspection is a technique that allows large scale internet surveillance, monitoring, and control. When you are connected to the internet, you are sending packets of data around that governmental and security companies can intercept, identify, and then read. When you are connected to a VPN, and your packets are inspected, ISPs and governments can tell you are using a VPN to unblock content.

In some countries like Iran or China, VPNs are even illegal. VPNs are so useful for getting around these censorship techniques that countries often try to ban them.

How to Unblock Reddit?

While most VPNs are helpless in censored countries that block websites–since deep packet inspection techniques can block VPNs almost completely–there are some VPN providers that have found ways around blockages so you can still get access to sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia in places like Egypt, China, Iran, Russia, and other countries.

And when I say “some” VPNs I don’t mean that many. A majority of VPN providers don’t have the resources, the interests, or the manpower to implement these technologies effectively. We’ve seen this happen with Astrill VPN– who was once one of the best VPNs to use in China and censored countries. Now, they are losing customers left and right with server outages, delayed customer service requests, slow speeds, and rumors of leakages.

Other companies like ExpressVPN are decent to use in China since they do claim they use special servers and certain techniques to get around VPN blockages, but it’s hard to find information on how much resources they dedicate to helping users in China or other blocked countries.

Best VPN for Unblocking Reddit?

The only VPN that I’ve found to work with unblocking Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or other sites in China (and one reason they are our current top rated VPN) is TorGuard VPN.

TorGuard VPN has Stealth servers that make VPN traffic appear like normal HTTPS traffic. In addition, they even have a double layered approach to hiding VPN use with their integrated Stealth Proxy feature in their TorGuard Lite client.

In fact, we’ve written an entire article about Stealth VPN and what it really is here, so check that out here if you want the nitty gritty on how Stealth VPN can help you unblock censored content and hide the use of your VPN. The bottom line is that if you want to unblock Reddit or other sites in censored countries, check out TorGuard VPN since it can’t be detected by deep packet inspection.

Visit TorGuard

Spark has a simple mission to help you chose the best VPN without any bias. Which VPN do I use? See it here!

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