Quote from: DireWolfM14 on Today at 01:20:49 AM

Quote from: zasad@ on June 27, 2025, 10:58:58 AM

And what local messenger do citizens use?
I noticed that WhatsApp is very popular there, Telegram is used by fewer people.
To register in WhatsApp, you need a phone number, and even if you use a VPN, it will not ensure privacy

I'm not sure if it's government restrictions preventing people from making calls on Whatsapp. I have lots of family in Jordan, and some of them can make calls on Whatsapp, while most can't. I think it's one of the bigger mobile phone plan carriers (Orange?) that's limiting phone calls on Whatsapp, while the smaller carriers don't seem to have those restrictions. What's funny is that the ones who can't use Whatsapp for calls can use Facebook Messenger to make calls, even though both apps are operated by Meta.

If privacy is a must, neither of those apps is recommended. Even though Whatsapp claims phone calls are end to end encrypted, they're still routed through a centralized server and the encryption isn't controlled by the end user.

All my contacts in Palestine can use Whatsapp for calls, which wouldn't make sense if the restrictions on voice calls was initiated at the government level.

I had no desire to understand the reasons for blocking, but their tariffs, like in my country, include a certain package of traffic and call time. If companies want to earn more money, they will have to spend a lot on blocking VPN protocols, but it is impossible to block all protocols.
The first time I was in Dubai was more than 10 years ago, and there I could not use some Russian services. I installed a VPN and everything worked as I needed. I can say that in a little over 10 years it has not gotten worse

In my country, only the following protocols work without problems:

Code:

Protocols with traffic Masking (Obfuscation): OpenVPN over Cloak plugin, Shadowsocks (OpenVPN over Shadowsocks), AmneziaWG and XRay.

Our government is trying to increase the literacy of the population, I even learned how to rent a server and set up clients for these protocols on it.
Therefore, for me, the restrictions in these countries seemed very funny.