On March 8th the first three apps Russia's most popular list in the Apple store were tools aimed at disguising the user’s location, using ruses such as virtual private networks (VPNs)
Russia’s most popular apps from the Apple store were broadly similar to the West’s. The top five by downloads showed people in Russia were conferencing on Zoom, messaging on Telegram and scrolling through Instagram. Today the app store looks very different. On March 8th the first three were tools aimed at disguising the user’s location, according to Data.ai, which monitors app downloads across the world.
VPN downloads are one way to measure concerns over access to the internet during a crisis. At its peak on March 5th, the number of online searches for VPNs in Russia was nearly 12 times the average, according to data from Top10VPN, a VPN review website. Demand in Ukraine peaked on March 2nd, at seven times the usual. The extra stress on Ukrainian servers in wartime has made it harder to use popular social-networking apps, such as Telegram, without a VPN.
Spikes in demand were also noted in other countries this year where citizens faced a cyber-crackdown. In Myanmar demand rose by 53% from its average after the military junta proposed updated cyber legislation in early 2022 . The Chinese government, another enthusiastic censor of the internet, ordered Apple to remove VPNs from its app store in 2017. The company has complied. But in Russia, it can afford to be bolder.
For now, Russians should be free to download location-disguising software—whether to seek information about
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