Bad news for all privacy-conscious people living in Indonesia or visiting soon. As authorities double down on online gambling and pornography – which are illegal in the country – online privacy is becoming collateral damage.
The private search engine DuckDuckGo is the first causality. On Friday, August 2, 2024, government officials confirmed to Reuters that the secure search engine had been blocked due to increasing complaints about online gambling and pornographic content in search results.
Local reports also suggest that the government plans to block access to free VPN services as part of a national crackdown on illegal online activity.
Privacy at risk
As mentioned, DuckDuckGo is a privacy tool that millions of people around the world use every day to browse anonymously and protect their privacy. Enforcing a ban on its use would deprive people living in or traveling to Indonesia of a valuable resource to protect their online privacy.
Access to the best VPN apps is also at risk – and that’s a privacy nightmare waiting to happen. A virtual private network (VPN) is security software that encrypts your internet connections and spoofs your IP address location. While both of these features increase your anonymity online, the latter also allows you to access otherwise geo-restricted content.
This means you may not be able to use a streaming VPN to continue watching your favorite TV shows while traveling around the country. Worse still, both citizens and travelers are unable to bypass the internet restrictions currently in place.
Indonesia, which boasts the world’s largest Muslim population, has strict rules against sharing online content deemed illegal or obscene. As a result, in addition to gambling and pornography websites, social media platforms such as Reddit and Vimeo are also blocked.
How to Bypass Internet Restrictions in Indonesia
Since there is no ban on free VPNs at the time of writing, using a VPN is still the best way to bypass internet restrictions and continue using DuckDuckGo, Reddit, and other currently blocked services.
Once you have downloaded your chosen app, all you need to do is connect to a server outside of the country. I recommend choosing one in an area where the internet is not hampered by restrictions. If you do that, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will think that you are in the same place as the server and will grant you access as a result.
Our top recommendation right now is NordVPN. However, if you’re on a budget, I’d recommend checking out our best cheap VPN provider – Surfshark. It comes with super easy-to-use apps and great unblocking. Proton VPN also features advanced anti-censorship technology, while offering some of the best freebies around.
If you’re having trouble accessing a VPN, Tor Browser is another free circumvention tool. Tor is a virtual private network and spoofs your IP while enclosing your connection in at least three layers of encryption for added security.