Difference between Shadowsocksr vs Shadowsocks vs SOCKS5 proxy
If you’re looking for different ways to spoof your IP address, you’ll quickly come across proxy protocols like SOCKS5 as well as Shadowsocks and its different variants. What do these protocols do, and how are they different from each other?
What is a SOCKS5 proxy?
If you’re on the web and want to make it seem like you’re in another place than you are, for whatever reason, there are a few ways to do so. The most basic is using a proxy server, a server that’s in a different place and that you can reroute your traffic through.
For example, if you’re in Canada and want to assume a U.S.-based IP address, you would connect to an American server before connecting to the site you want to visit. When you do this, you make the connection between you and the proxy using a protocol, a set of rules that governs how machines talk to each other.
One of the most popular of these protocols is the SOCKS protocol, of which SOCKS5 is the latest iteration. It lets you connect to a proxy server and thus spoof your IP address. The reason why you need to use this protocol is simple: regular internet traffic doesn’t let you bounce connections around like this, it’s simply not designed this way.
Lack of security
One thing missing with SOCKS5, though, is security: at no point is the connection encrypted. The only security available is a password login to make sure only authorized people use it, but even that is missing more often than not.
Because of this lack of encryption, a connection using SOCKS5 is pretty easy to detect, making it close to useless if you need it for anything serious, like unblocking Netflix or getting around censorship blocks. In fact, in this last case using it may even be dangerous as your connection can easily be tracked back to you.
However, if you want to unblock YouTube, for example, a proxy protocol like SOCKS5 is a solid option. You can simply use a free proxy like on this open-source proxy list, use it to connect to YouTube, and that’s it. However, for anything more advanced, like most streaming services or TikTok, you’re much better off using a VPN.
What is Shadowsocks, ShadowsocksR, and Shadowsocks-libev?
As handy as SOCKS5 can be, its lack of encryption is a serious issue. SOCKS5 has some great advantages, like the fact that it’s easy to use and quick to implement, but without encryption you can be tracked by just anybody who puts their mind to it.
While one way to get around this issue is to use something else entirely, like the VPNs we mentioned earlier or even Tor, another option is to add encryption to SOCKS. This seems to have been the thinking for a Chinese programmer with the pseudonym clowwindy, who created Shadowsocks as a way to get past his country’s draconian internet censorship.
The result was Shadowsocks, which came out in 2012 and was a big hit with China’s underground internet scene. The simplest way to explain it is as a SOCKS proxy that can be encrypted using lightweight ciphers. Basically, you get to have your cake (a SOCKS proxy) and eat it (encryption), too.
The upside is that, like regular SOCKS5, the connection you make is hard to detect as there’s no easy way to distinguish it from regular internet traffic — an issue VPNs can face. On the other hand, Shadowsocks is encrypted, so if the signal is discovered, it can’t be tracked back to you.
Despite clowwindy distancing himself from the project in 2015 after he was visited by the Chinese police, Shadowsocks has thrived among anybody that wants to be able to bypass blocks. It’s popular among people that want to get past national blocks, like in authoritarian states like China or Russia, as well as for people that want to bypass a more simple firewall, like those put up in schools or most places of work.
Shadowsocks Forks and Ports
Shadowsocks is entirely open source and as a result people have made all kinds of adjustments to it. Some are forks, where a copy of the software was made and different functionality added, while others are ports, where part of the software’s framework was changed so it can run on different devices.
A good example is Shadowsocks-libev, which is a lightweight port which is made to run using the C programming language, making it ideal for use on low-end machines, or particularly small ones. In this incarnation, Shadowsocks takes up fewer resources and should provide no issue when running on machines that can’t handle the full weight of Shadowsocks.
Another popular port is ShadowsocksR, which is an updated version of Shadowsocks that should be even harder to detect than regular Shadowsocks. In most of the guides you find online, it’s this version that you’ll most likely use.
Using Shadowsocks
As great as it is for developers to have this much malleability when using Shadowsocks, for regular users it can get confusing: should you use regular Shadowsocks, or use the R version? It doesn’t help that many setup guides will use other hobbyists’ depositories to retrieve code from, making it hard to be sure what you’re downloading onto your machine. In most cases, it’s also presumed that you know your way around your system and you may even need some programming skills to set things up.
If you’re interested in trying out Shadowsocks but not sure where to start, check out a program called Outline. This is a free and user-friendly way to use Shadowsocks, all you need to use it is a server — Outline helps you set one up — which can cost as little as $5 per month.
Shadowsocks vs SOCKS5 vs VPN
Now that you have an idea of what’s available, you may wonder which of the above options is best for you and when you should use which, or when you should just use a VPN, instead.
Overall, the best option is to use a VPN. If you’re not sure exactly what you’ll be doing, or you’ll be doing a bit of everything, VPNs are the best way to go. They reroute your traffic just like a proxy would, but encrypt it to a higher standard than Shadowsocks does. You’re getting the best of both worlds, and then some.
However, VPNs can set you back a few bucks, and could, theoretically, be blocked by certain regimes. There are rumors that China can block VPN traffic, for example. In these cases, when you’re trying to get past blocks or firewalls, Shadowsocks is a perfectly good alternative.
Shadowsocks is easy to set up if you use Outline, and pretty cheap to run. If you can somehow get use of a free server, it would even cost you nothing at all. Without Outline, though, Shadowsocks can be a headache unless you know your way around your system.
Proxies are the last option. Generally speaking, you should only use these to get past the most basic of firewalls, like those at your school or work, places where failure doesn’t come with consequences. They’re just not very effective tools, though they come with the upside that there’s no setup to speak of, and they’re usually completely free to use.
If you need a VPN for a short while when traveling for example, you can get our top ranked VPN free of charge. NordVPN includes a 30-day money-back guarantee. You will need to pay for the subscription, that’s a fact, but it allows full access for 30 days and then you cancel for a full refund. Their no-questions-asked cancellation policy lives up to its name.
