The Tor Project has unveiled a new Android application called Snowflake Volunteer, designed to empower users to contribute a portion of their internet bandwidth to assist individuals in circumventing online censorship. This innovative app aims to broaden the network of volunteer-operated Snowflake proxies while allowing users to maintain control over their device’s battery, network, and connection usage.
Snowflake serves as a Tor pluggable transport that camouflages a user’s internet traffic to mimic a video call, routing it through ephemeral proxies managed by volunteers. This method complicates the task for censors, making it significantly more challenging to identify and block connections compared to traditional traffic routed through a fixed server infrastructure.
Developed by Bloco, an Android studio based in Portugal, the app emerged from a collaboration with Tor’s anti-censorship team. The initiative was inspired by Bloco’s involvement with the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), where developers recognized the critical role that censorship circumvention tools play for activists and non-governmental organizations striving to maintain connectivity.
Previously, users could run Snowflake proxies via various methods, including browser extensions, website embeds, desktop command-line tools, or through Orbot’s Kindness Mode on Android. In the first half of 2026, the Snowflake broker recorded an impressive average of approximately 146,000 unique volunteer proxy IP addresses daily, with about one-third linked to Orbot’s Kindness Mode, which tracks the number of connections supported by users. This data suggested that a dedicated Android app could significantly enhance volunteer participation.
Built for background operation
Snowflake Volunteer leverages mobile Tor components developed by the Guardian Project, including IPtProxy, a library designed to facilitate the integration of Tor and its pluggable transports into mobile applications. By utilizing these existing components, Bloco concentrated on minimizing battery consumption, ensuring the service remains active in the background, and making the app accessible to users who may not be well-versed in Tor’s technical framework.
Volunteers have the flexibility to configure the app to operate solely on unmetered networks like Wi-Fi, activate it only while the device is charging, and limit the number of simultaneous connections they support. Once activated, the app connects to the Snowflake broker and automatically links users seeking temporary proxies to the Tor network, eliminating the need for volunteers to approve individual connections.
Available on Google Play and F-Droid
Snowflake Volunteer can be downloaded from both Google Play and F-Droid, with its source code also available for independent download and compilation. Prospective volunteers should evaluate their mobile data limits, battery usage, local regulations, and any applicable workplace or educational network policies before enabling the service. Configuring the app to operate only on Wi-Fi and during charging can help mitigate its impact on device performance.
It is advisable for volunteers to install the app exclusively from its official distribution platforms and to keep it updated to benefit from the latest enhancements to Snowflake and Tor’s censorship circumvention technologies.
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