Edit: We've updated the numbers and added more details in a new article. Check it out →
While most of the attention is focused on Ukraine right now, there's something else that's going on rather quietly that's also of importance. The government of Russia, which is invading Ukraine, is also making it hard for its citizens to access information about the events that are unfolding.
As of right now, and for most of this week, VPN apps have risen to the top of both the App Store and Google Play in Russia.
In case you're not familiar, VPNs provide a secure tunnel to the internet through servers in other countries, which allows those who use them to circumvent local limits in most cases.
As of this Tuesday, the most popular VPN apps in Russia saw an increase in downloads of more than 1,200%.
According to our App Intelligence, daily downloads, which average 10K in Russia across the App Store and Google Play, rose to more than half a million on Tuesday. Just Tuesday!
Since the invasion began, the top VPN apps, which mostly seem generic but also include Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 app, were downloaded more than 1.3 million times in Russia alone.
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