Shadowsocks is basically an open-source for bypassing the censored content on internet. It was introduced in 2012 by a Chinese programmer with an anonymous name “CLOWWINDY”. It is used, widely, to access the restricted web sources in one’s country and to hide your identity in order to work anonymously. Shadowsocks came to the mainstream when great firewall in china occurred, that is the blocking of major VPN providers. It became popular as an alternative for VPN, but it is exactly not a VPN like service. After successful implementation of the protocols employed in the Shadowsocks, since then, several other applications have been developed using these protocols.
What Shadowsocks is for
It is mainly aimed at going past censorship with HTTPS and deceived traffic restrictions. Shadowsocks runs on the client side using a software application support, which, like SSH tunnel, runs socks5 proxy to divert internet traffic. But unlike SSH tunnel, UDP (User Datagram Protocol) traffic can also be diverted using Shadowsocks. What Shadowsocks does is that it creates a concealed connected between the proxy server running in your computer and the Shadowsocks client in user system with the help of SOCKS5, which is an open source internet protocol.
differences between Shadowsocks and VPNs
Shadowsocks is an intermediate proxy technology gain access to restricted websites bypassing the government censorships and Geoblocks. It is based on SOCKS5 which is an open-source media. The basic idea behind Shadowsocks framework is to employ HTTPS codes to disguise the encroachments as HTTPS data and thus getting access to the restricted profiles. It has a few similarities with VPN which is more of a privacy enabler through encrypted information flow, but is different from it on many other fronts. VPN works as an encryption tool to ensure privacy for the clients while Shadowsocks aim to disguise into HTTPS codes and camouflage in the data traffic to gain access to restricted fields on the internet.
Unlike VPN, the Shadowsocks is a proxy—a web server, computer or an application which serves as an arbitrator between client and another server— allows us to forward data to another online resource using the third party handshake, the proxy. Proxy configuration, in a program or web-browser, is input manually and restricted to the particular program for which it is set. Which means it has nothing to do with the other programs’ configuration. Because the proxy is an application specific service, hence Shadowsocks is also restricted to the application configuration to gets its services.
On the other hand, the Virtual Private Network, an extension of a personal or private network across any shared or public network in order to share data by simulating the public network that the respective private network is also part of it, unlike Shadowsocks doesn’t need any configuration for a specific application. Rather it runs over the system and is applicable to be accessed in all application of the client’s system.
Shadowsocks uses SOCKS5 proxies and therefore uses multiple routes and serves to transfer and process data unlike VPN which transfers all of it through single server. Thus, users looking for privacy and security fall for inducting VPN while those looking for unauthorized access resort to Shadowsocks. But, the threats associated with identity are better covered by VPN compared to Shadowsocks, which is where VPN has an upper hand.
Shadowsocks transfers only the protocol specified data i.e. TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) or UDP (User Datagram Protocol). Unlike Shadowsocks, VPN can be used to transfer any type of data regardless of its protocol. For instance, all types of protocols are acceptable in VPN like NTP, UDP, DNS or TCP.
VPN is more viable, popular and widely used mainstream tech-tool to wipe out your online traces and keep your identity hidden from all threats in the first place. The choice for VPN over Shadowsocks in the markets is driven by its acceptability among the users and higher percentage of success rate. There are a lot of other differences but yes security, reliability and effectiveness are the main difference elements and key components behind the huge market for VPNs as compared Shadowsocks.
Advantages of the shadowsocks respect VPNs
The fundamental advantage of Shadowsocks over VPN is being free and open source platform and its major benefit is its easy and simple setup. It doesn’t need to take complex configurations setup and its response time is much better than VPN. Due to its fast and easy setup capability, Shadowsocks holds the priority over VPN to access to restricted sites.
Although both Shadowsocks and VPN provides the access to uncensored world of internet but Shadowsocks utilizes HTTPS, thus disguising traffic so that it can move past the censorship measures in place.
Another reason due to which Shadowsocks have upper hand on VPNs is the use of multiple TCP connections which makes it faster as compared to its alternatives.
The disguising scheme of Shadowsocks is capable to select the traffic for which you want the Shadowsocks to be affected. This disguising capability makes the user capable to appear visible and invisible with its own identity to the external sources. Due to the use of technology of the HTTP masking, the Shadowsocks is nearly unable to block or detect.
Disadvantages of the shadowsocks respect VPNs
Shadowsocks is a Chinese proxy project developed in 2012 to deceive the internet. VPN allows the users to access a public connection safely while the Shadowsocks is dedicated to ruining the entire traffic restrictions established by the internet and mainly aiming to bypass the firewall. VPN’s are designed to increase the online security. VPN’s help you to protect your data, in short, we can say that an additional layer of security is being added to the network to protect the data besides the presence of the firewall and the antivirus. While the VPN is designed for complete privacy such that no person should know or track the activities performed through it. Shadowsocks creates a different appeal to the identity of the user such that the person is never tracked.
VPN’s make sure that all the traffic within the network is encrypted in the form of packages and on the other hand in Shadowsocks the packages are blank or empty. Shadowsocks always use proxy servers to transmit and receive the data all the time while performing every single activity while the VPN’s have a dedicated server and every information is passed through it in a genuine manner following all the protocols of the internet service. Despite its assured services, the major disadvantage of Shadowsocks over VPN is that it is insecure and doesn’t guarantee technology in terms of private security as compared to VPN. Using Shadowsocks may allow any aggressor or concealer to breach your privacy and to steal your data.
VPN’s are preferred over the Shadowsocks because when you aim to maintain your identity i.e. to protect your identity with not showing any traces of your activities in the digital era then you should definitely use the VPN. The activities you perform through the VPN’s are legal and legitimate while the Shadowsocks is not the proper way of using the internet as it is not legitimate since your digital footprints and traces will be available may it be the proxy servers. It will be pointed and backtracked if found suspicious.
The restrictions of Shadowsocks to the specific protocols limit its performance over the VPN. Moreover, being application specific service, Shadowsocks limits its use to only one application in the system and in case a user needs to switch the application, it requires another configuration setting to be done the application.
Potential risks about using shadowsocks
It became a favorite commodity among a good number of Chinese users, but there are some potential risks associated while using Shadowsocks. In VPN our identity is protected, but that’s not the case with Shadowsocks. When VPN is active all the traffic is encrypted through a different server but in Shadowsocks the traffic is through different TCP connections. This means that our identity can’t be protected as in VPN. Unlike VPN, Shadowsocks has a limited functionality, it can be monitored by your ISP, public Wi-Fi, etc. The main use is only limited to censorship bypassing. It also doesn’t erase the digital footprints created by our server, in that case VPN is again the best tool. Shadowsocks also won’t be an ideal candidate for setting up privacy in your work environment, unless your prime motive to bypassing censorship. For that again VPN is the best option.
Because Shadowsocks doesn’t provide much private security to its user hence the risk of being stolen off your private credentials like logins and passwords exists.
Shadowsocks was taken down in 2015 when police reached “clowwindy”, the code was also removed. But since Shadowsocks being an open source program anyone can maintain the code, so it will a herculean task to kill Shadowsocks. When every VPN apps taken down by china’s great firewall even some Shadowsocks apps like potasto was removed. But still it is identified as one of the best option to bypass the great firewall.