Victoria C.
Lantern is an application for computer and smartphone. It works a bit like a browser, but above all by providing you with a quick access as a straight line to blocked sites.
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How does Lantern work?
Lantern is developed by a team of smart guys who love nothing more than getting around censorship and firewalls. When a technique doesn't work, they look for a new one. And they regularly update their system: the latest version was released last October and now allows file sharing on its internal network as a bonus.
Your traffic is encrypted and does not store any of your information. Better, they decided not to cooperate with law enforcement agencies. What is especially interesting in countries in tension: in March 2022, Russian Internet users recognized use Lantern to bypass internet blocks in their country.
It's not you who is anonymous, but the content you search, view and share. Anti-censorship blocks are also bypassed.
Lantern Limits
With Lantern, you think you see the light at the end of the road. But be careful, it is mainly intended for you allow quick and unlimited access to the sites you want to visit. It is not an anonymization tool, however: if protecting your identity is your main concern, you would be better off using Tor.
Moreover, as the number of users is constantly increasing (surprising, isn't it, with the censorship laws that are getting tougher all over the world?), they have been forced to limit bandwidth to 500 MB/month in their free version. Beyond that, the connection is slowed down and the application kindly suggests that you inquire about its paid version (at $32 for one year or $48 for two years).
7 Tips for Getting Started with Lantern
Know that Lantern works
Lantern is very easy to download and install. When it is running, the icon appears at the bottom right of your screen. Checking that it is on allows you to avoid using all your bandwidth when you don't need it, for example. You can then stop it by clicking on this icon, then on Close Lantern in the menu that opens.
Sign out
By going to Lantern, you will see the location of the server used for your connection. A green circle with “Enabled” appears. Click on it to disable the connection.
Choose Ads
In the launch window, click the profile icon, top right. Then click Settings, then Show advanced settings. If you check Show Lantern ads, you will help fund the app (unchecking this box will still expose you to outside ads).
Select Relayed Traffic
In the launch window, click the profile icon, top right. Then click Settings, then Show advanced settings. You can choose to relay all traffic through Lantern, which is the most secure option. Or uncheck the box, for faster browsing, for which Lantern will just relay blocked sites.
See also: Guide: Change DNS to Access a Blocked Site (2023 Edition) & 10 Best Free and Fast DNS Servers (PC & Consoles)
Learn More
When you go to the left menu and click on Discover. you land in a page that looks like any search engine. Except that the only results displayed on the side of videos, images and sounds will be those of documents uploaded by Lantern users.
Access a blocked site
When your firewall is blocking you from accessing a site, it might be a good time to turn your Lantern back on. Open your app if it's closed, and try to log in to the page again. In most cases, the result is immediate!
Upload a file
If you would like to contribute to Lantern's new file database, go to Discover, then Drop File to initiate the upload. Supported document types are videos, images, audio files or pdfs.
