According to TechRadar, Windscribe is rolling out support for the AmneziaWG protocol directly into its apps to help users in Iran and Russia, where VPN connections are failing. The company’s CEO, Yegor Sak, confirmed the feature is in beta testing now and will be available to all users, including free ones, once integrated. This comes as Iran began enforcing a new “whitelisting” filter system on January 8, and Russia is moving to a similar framework. Windscribe’s data shows 69% of its users in these regions are on Android and 52% on Windows, guiding its development priorities. The company is also working on a separate, server-side system to combat whitelisting, with beta Android APKs and Windows builds coming soon.
The protocol patch
So, Windscribe’s first move is baking AmneziaWG into its apps. It’s a protocol designed to mimic normal web traffic to sneak past Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). That’s a solid, tactical update. VPN providers have been in this arms race for years, tweaking protocols the moment governments figure out how to block the old ones. And look, it probably will help some people get connected again, for a while. But here’s the thing: the CEO himself admits this “won’t bypass whitelisting techniques.” So it’s a patch for the current problem, not a solution for the next one. It feels like reinforcing the front door while the authorities are getting ready to pour concrete around your entire house.
Whitelisting: the real game-changer
This is the critical shift. Moving from blacklisting (blocking bad sites) to whitelisting (only allowing approved sites) is a nightmare for circumvention tools. It fundamentally changes the game. A VPN can help you hop a fence, but what if the entire country is placed inside a sealed dome? Whitelisting makes VPN blocking trivial—if only a list of pre-approved IP addresses can be reached, any connection to a VPN server IP just gets dropped. The experts TechRadar spoke to aren’t mincing words: this could make VPN usage “even harder, if not impossible.” Windscribe says it’s working on a server-side solution for this, but details are zero. That’s the part to watch. The success or failure of that unnamed system is what actually matters now.
Historical context and skepticism
Let’s be real. We’ve seen this cycle before. A government rolls out a new block, VPNs scramble for a workaround, they find one, and then the government improves its block. Rinse and repeat. Russia and Iran have become incredibly sophisticated at this. The fact that most Western VPNs are already “non-functional” in Russia tells you how effective the current blocks are. So, while Windscribe’s efforts on Telegram, Reddit, and X are commendable and transparent, the historical trend isn’t in their favor. Whitelisting is a qualitative leap in control, not just another technical hurdle. I think the big question is: can any purely commercial VPN provider truly out-engineer a nation-state that decides to fully lock down its internet? The odds get longer every time.
What it means for the industry
Basically, Windscribe is now a canary in the coal mine. Its performance against these new whitelisting regimes will be a blueprint for the entire industry. If its secret server-side solution works, you’ll see every major VPN rush to implement something similar. If it fails, it signals a potentially existential threat to the commercial VPN model in censored regions. The focus on Android and Windows builds first is pragmatic—it follows the user base. But it also highlights that this is a fight for access on the most common, affordable devices. It’s not about luxury privacy; it’s about maintaining a basic lifeline to the outside world. The stakes here are way higher than just losing a few subscribers. This is about whether the core promise of a VPN—to provide uncensored access—can survive the next generation of digital authoritarianism.
