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Lantern has helped people stay online during some of the world’s most extreme censorship events, including the Women, Life, Freedom protests in Iran (2022) and the Hong Kong protests (2019). It enabled millions to reach the open internet when access was nearly impossible.

Proven when it matters most.

Built by a nonprofit with 12+ years of experience advancing internet freedom in the world’s most restricted regions.

Mission-driven nonprofit

Lantern is open source and actively improved in partnership with the global censorship circumvention community.

Open source

Built on transparency, trust, and purpose

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When you upgrade to Lantern Pro, you’re not just getting a faster, more powerful VPN, you’re helping someone else connect. Pro subscriptions fund the infrastructure that keeps Lantern free in censored regions. Just by subscribing, you are part of a global effort to keep the internet open.

Lantern Pro

Unbounded is now part of the Lantern app and available as an extension at [unbounded.lantern.io](https://unbounded.lantern.io). It gives you the option to securely share your connection with people facing censorship. It is a simple, private, and safe way to help others get online and a powerful extension of your support.

Unbounded

Using Lantern protects global internet freedom

Lantern uses a reinforcement learning algorithm to select the best route for your traffic. It continuously adjusts to deliver faster, more stable performance.

AI-Optimized connections

Lantern routes only the traffic that needs protection, whether it’s blocked or better kept private. Your connection stays fast by default, with the option to switch to full protection at any time.

Split Tunneling

Lantern keeps you connected even in the world’s most heavily censored regions. It adapts in real time to help you access blocked websites and apps when it matters most

Uncensored Global Access

Lantern’s Core Capabilities

Lantern delivers faster access to trusted sites, with strong privacy protection and unblocking where it matters most.

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Split tunneling is a VPN feature that allows you to route some of your internet traffic through an encrypted VPN connection, while other traffic connects directly to the internet. It helps you balance security and performance by protecting the traffic that needs it, while keeping trusted connections fast and efficient.

What is Split Tunneling?

Smarter Split Tunneling

Most VPNs market themselves as essential for every connection, but in reality, most of your daily internet use is already secure. Modern sites and apps use HTTPS encryption, so your ISP can see only the domain you're visiting (like google.com), not specific pages or actions.

Lantern is designed for how the internet works today. Instead of routing everything through a VPN, it intelligently steps in only when needed, tunneling unencrypted, blocked, or sensitive traffic. Everything else stays direct for faster speeds and protection exactly when you need it.

Lantern routes safe, routine, and uncensored traffic directly, so you get faster speeds without unnecessary detours.

Faster Direct Access

Apps and sites that need privacy protection or unblocking are automatically routed through Lantern’s secure, encrypted network.

Protected Sensitive Traffic

Lantern sets defaults based on your region, securing sensitive traffic and keeping trusted traffic fast. No setup required.

Tailored to your region

Choose exactly which apps and websites use the VPN, or switch to full VPN mode if you want all traffic routed through Lantern.

Fully customizable Controls

Not all traffic needs a VPN.  Here’s why.

Lantern automatically detects which traffic needs VPN protection based on your region and the destination. This is the default for the fastest, smoothest experience.

When Split Tunneling is turned off, all of your internet traffic is securely routed through Lantern’s VPN network for maximum coverage.

Choose how your traffic is routed

Lantern supports more censorship-resistant protocols than any other VPN, allowing it to adapt in real time to some of the world’s most aggressive network restrictions. These all aim to make your traffic appear inconspicuous, or unrecognizable to filtering systems, so it can slip past firewalls, DPI (Deep Packet Inspection), and other censorship mechanisms.

After more than a decade helping users stay connected, we know that no single method works everywhere or all the time. That’s why Lantern integrates and maintains such a wide range of proven, open-source protocols, and dynamically selects the best one for your connection as conditions change.

A lightweight proxy protocol that encrypts traffic and disguises it to resemble ordinary TLS connections.

Shadowsocks

Lantern’s own censorship-resistant protocol, designed to mimic common traffic patterns while maintaining flexibility for rapid circumvention updates.

Algeneva

A stateless, lightweight transport protocol designed to replace VMess, often used with Xray for better obfuscation and faster handshake performance.

VLESS

Hides proxy traffic behind legitimate TLS handshakes, making it indistinguishable from regular HTTPS to defeat active probing and deep packet inspection.

Shadow TLS

A QUIC-based protocol that prioritizes performance and obfuscation, providing fast and secure communication that's difficult to fingerprint.

TUIC

A crowdsourced connection-sharing feature that helps bypass censorship by increasing IP diversity. A unique part of Lantern’s circumvention system.

Core protocols supported by Lantern

Lantern has helped millions stay connected during some of the most significant human rights crises of the decade. Everything we’ve learned from working in high-censorship environments has made Lantern faster, smarter, and more reliable, whether you’re bypassing restrictions or just need a better VPN.

During widespread protests, as internet surveillance and content filtering intensified, Lantern provided reliable, uncensored access when traditional tools were disrupted or blocked.

During the Women, Life, Freedom protests, Lantern connected millions of users. At the height of the shutdown, we estimate that 13% of all internet traffic in Iran was flowing through Lantern.

After the invasion of Ukraine, censorship in Russia spiked. As users sought access to blocked news and platforms, Lantern’s monthly active users globally grew by over 300%.

Proven under pressure

Unbounded is a secure, optional feature in Lantern—and also available as a standalone browser extension—that lets you share your connection with people facing internet censorship. When you turn it on, your device becomes a secure “digital bridge,” helping others access the open internet.

Unbounded strengthens Lantern’s network by increasing the number and diversity of "digital bridges" to the open internet, making censorship harder to enforce.

It’s part of our mission to make free and open access to the internet available to everyone, everywhere.

Fight Global internet censorship

## Mission

Over the past decade, Lantern has become one of the most trusted and effective tools for bypassing internet censorship, with more than 250 million downloads worldwide. We’ve helped people access the open internet during some of the most sensitive political moments and in the face of the world’s most aggressive internet censorship..

We believe uncensored internet access is a human right. Our mission is to provide fast, secure, and reliable access to the open internet, empowering people everywhere to seek information freely and share their stories with the world.

## Who we are

Lantern is developed by Brave New Software Project, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2013 to advance digital freedom. We work at the intersection of technology and human rights, expanding access to the uncensored internet, particularly in regions where platforms, websites, and communication tools are routinely blocked.

With over a decade of experience in some of the world's most heavily censored environments, we bring deep technical expertise and a clear focus on privacy, transparency, and long-term impact. Our work is guided by the real needs of the people who depend on open access every day.

To protect our team and the communities we serve, we do not publicly share staff names or identifying details, but our work is performed with transparency as open-source contributors, and we welcome audits and collaboration.

## Our partners

We collaborate with organizations around the world that share our commitment to internet freedom, transparency, and human rights. Together, we support open access and resilient technologies for people living under censorship.

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Mission + Impact

When you subscribe to Lantern Pro, you’re not just getting a VPN, you’re helping make the service available for free in some of the most heavily censored regions in the world. In many of these places, financial and legal barriers make it difficult or impossible to charge for access, even though the need is most urgent .

Lantern is designed for people who need to bypass censorship or simply want a VPN they can trust. Features like Unbounded let users share access directly, creating a peer-powered network that reaches places traditional infrastructure often can't.

Because Lantern is open source, independently audited, and never logs user activity, it meets the highest standards of transparency and safety, essential for the people who rely on it.

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How Lantern supports digital freedom

*Names and locations have been changed to protect user privacy.

Lantern user stories

Even small actions can expand access. Whether you're using Lantern every day, sharing your connection, or contributing behind the scenes, your support helps people around the world reach the uncensored internet.

When you subscribe to Lantern Pro, you get fast, private access and help keep it free for people in the world’s most censored regions.

Use Lantern as your primary VPN

Securely share your connection to help someone else get online.

Run Unbounded

Help improve the code that powers Lantern and supports free access.

Contribute on GitHub

Support our mission directly. Every contribution helps sustain free and open internet access for those who need it most