Should you use TrickyBird or a VPN?

Side by side

Both can reach a site your network blocks, and the difference is what else each one touches. The longer explainer covers how they work.

The rows a VPN wins carry the same mark as the rows TrickyBird wins. For some readers, the VPN rows are the ones that settle the choice.

When a VPN is the better tool

A VPN covers every app on the device, not only the browser. TrickyBird covers the site you open in that tab. It does not intercept WebRTC, a separate browser feature a page can use to reach the network on its own. A VPN also leaves the page alone, while TrickyBird rewrites each page to serve it, so some pages do not come through intact. A VPN adds nothing inside your browser, while a TrickyBird session runs a script in the tab and the sites you open save their data under TrickyBird’s address. With a VPN, everything on the device goes through the provider’s servers, so you are trusting their policy and their jurisdiction.

What a DNS or WebRTC leak is.

When TrickyBird is the better tool

Use TrickyBird when a network or a place blocks the site you need and the device is not yours to change. That means a library computer, a hotel machine, a work laptop, or a phone where you cannot add apps. There is nothing to install and no admin rights to ask for. It is also the lighter tool when the job is small. To read a blocked article or watch a single video, a device-wide tunnel is more setup than the task calls for. The address of the site you open never shows up in your URL bar or on the page you see. You can check that yourself.

• Run the leak test
• Which sites work
• How to unblock websites

How pages, video and audio come through

TrickyBird reads each page with a real HTML parser, so the rewriting follows the page’s structure rather than patterns in its text. You are never shown a page that is only half rewritten. TrickyBird changes only the places where a site’s own scripts read the page address. The rest of the file stays byte for byte as the site wrote it. On a site that moves between pages without reloading, you still land on the page you asked for. After the page loads, a site keeps making requests. A small script that runs in the tab for the session picks those up, so they go through TrickyBird as well. Video and audio are passed through as the site sends them, not re-encoded. TrickyBird forwards a player’s request for part of a file, so dragging the progress bar works. A connection that stays open, such as a live chat, is carried through TrickyBird as well. If a page cannot be reached, you get a TrickyBird page with a short reference code, not the site’s own error text or its address. None of this makes every site work. The status page lists the sites our own tests have opened.

How a session works

Every request is checked against a signed session pass before TrickyBird fetches anything. TrickyBird keeps no session record. Your pass is a signature that TrickyBird re-checks on every request. The pass sits in a cookie that the pages you open cannot read. A session pass expires about an hour after it is issued, and nothing renews it. That is not a lockout: when the pass expires, the tab returns you to the TrickyBird console and you open the site again from there. There is no account and no sign-out button. The cookie holding the pass is dropped when you close your browser.

What TrickyBird keeps

There is no account, so there is no profile for anything to attach to. TrickyBird keeps a small access log for at most 48 hours, to run the service and stop abuse. It does not record the specific pages you open. After 48 hours the access log is rotated out, so there is normally nothing left to hand over.

See what we log.

What we do not claim

• TrickyBird is not a VPN and does not cover your whole device.
• It does not make you anonymous. Your own network can see that you connected to TrickyBird. The site you open sees our server, and your browser still identifies itself to that site in the usual way.
• We keep a small access log for at most 48 hours.
• TrickyBird receives and rewrites each page, so it handles the content of the pages you open.
• Not every site works, and we publish the ones we have checked rather than promising the rest.
• TrickyBird is for reaching public sites that a network or a region blocks. It is not for getting past a paywall, a login, or copyright protection.

What to check before you rely on any web proxy

These 4 checks work on any web proxy, ours included.

• Does it open the site you need? TrickyBird publishes the sites our own tests have opened, so you can look yours up first.
• Do video and audio actually play? Video and audio play on many sites, alongside the pages and images.
• Does it put ads or pop-ups into the page? TrickyBird does not secretly inject ads or pop-ups into the pages you open.
• Does it need an install or an account? TrickyBird needs neither. You paste a link and the site opens in the tab.

To compare web proxies, open the same blocked site through each and see which checks pass.

See which sites work.

Questions people ask

Is TrickyBird a VPN?

No. TrickyBird is a web proxy, not a VPN. It opens 1 site in a browser tab instead of routing your whole device through a tunnel, and there is nothing to install.

If I can install software, should I still use a web proxy?

For 1 site, a web proxy is lighter: a device-wide tunnel is more setup than the task calls for. If you want every app covered, a VPN is the right tool.

Does it hide my IP address the way a VPN does?

Your IP address is not passed on to the site, which sees our server’s address instead. Your browser still identifies itself to the site in the usual way. TrickyBird also does not intercept WebRTC, a separate browser feature a page can use to reach the network on its own.

Does it work on a device I cannot install anything on?

Yes. That is the situation TrickyBird is built for. It runs in the browser you already have, with nothing to install and no admin rights to ask for. The status page lists the sites we have checked.