Is AmneziaVPN censored by Apple?

Why it is unavailable

1. Apple told the developer · 2024-10-31

   Apple told the developer it was removing the app from the Russia App Store at the request of Roskomnadzor, Russia's internet regulator. The developer published the notice on its own channel; Apple made no public statement.

   Source:Apple Tightens Censorship of VPN Apps in Russia's App StoreApplies to Russia.

Five things can put an app out of one App Store. Each is weighed below against what can be seen from outside — open a card for the reasoning.

• A government or a court demanded itOn the record

  and Apple complied. Apple publishes a count of these per country each year and never says which apps they were. Apple's 2025 App Store Transparency Report

  • 79% of VPN and proxy apps are unavailable in mainland China — 1,293 of 1,646 — against 28% of everything we test there.
  • 3 other apps left Russia the same day, Oct 31, 2024.
  • Apple reports 1,213 government-ordered removals in Russia for 2025, naming none of them.
  • Missing from 2 of 175 storefronts, available in 173.
  • A cited source says so — above.
• Apple applied a rule, unaskedPossible

  either its own review guidelines, or its own reading of a local law, with nobody having demanded anything. This is the largest category in Apple's own removal figures by a wide margin, and it covers distribution permits as well as content — Apple kept a free Bible app out of mainland China in 2021 for want of one. Apple's 2025 App Store Transparency Report

  • 79% of VPN and proxy apps are unavailable in mainland China — 1,293 of 1,646 — against 28% of everything we test there.
  • 3 other apps left Russia the same day, Oct 31, 2024.
  • Missing from 2 of 175 storefronts, available in 173.
  • A different cause is cited above.
• The developer withheld itUnlikely

  freely, or under legal advice of their own, or because Apple's guidelines require that kind of app to be limited to certain countries. Switching a country off is easy for a developer to do in Apple's own tools: it needs no new version of the app, and it leaves no public trace other than the app being unavailable.

  • 79% of VPN and proxy apps are unavailable in mainland China — 1,293 of 1,646 — against 28% of everything we test there.
  • 3 other apps left Russia the same day, Oct 31, 2024.
  • Missing from 2 of 175 storefronts, available in 173.
  • A different cause is cited above.
• Something brokeUnlikely

  a rejected update, a lapsed certificate, a payment or licensing problem, a mistake nobody has got round to noticing.

  • 79% of VPN and proxy apps are unavailable in mainland China — 1,293 of 1,646 — against 28% of everything we test there.
  • 3 other apps left Russia the same day, Oct 31, 2024.
  • Gone for 2 years.
  • A different cause is cited above.
• A local rule about paying for itRuled out

  gambling licences, financial rules, tax — the kind of law that governs a transaction. Apple can obey every one of them by refusing the payment, which is why this is the only restriction we would accept and the only one that cannot touch a free app.

  • It is free, so Apple sells nothing here.

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