Flowseal/zapret-discord-youtube

What it is

This repository packages the Windows build of zapret with a set of ready-made DPI-bypass strategies and Batchfile menus for using them. It targets Windows users in networks where YouTube, Discord or Telegram are blocked or throttled and who want a local workaround rather than a remote proxy. The project is an alternative to bol-van/zapret-win-bundle; the executables and system files under bin come from that bundle and the upstream zapret releases and can be checked against published hashes (README lines 3–33).

The core technique is WinDivert-based traffic interception and filtering, configured differently by each general* strategy. Different strategies work on different ISPs and can stop working over time as filtering adapts, so the repository ships many alternatives (ALT, FAKE, and others) and expects trial and error (README lines 113–130).

Getting started

1. Enable Secure DNS in the browser or OS: in Chrome choose a secure DNS provider other than the default; in Firefox set DNS over HTTPS to custom mode and enter a provider URL such as https://dns.google/dns-query; Windows 11 users can enable it in system settings (README lines 34–51).
2. Download the ZIP/RAR from the latest release.
3. Open the archive's properties and check "Unblock" (skippable with 7-Zip or PeaZip).
4. Extract it to a path without Cyrillic characters or special symbols.
5. To find a working strategy, run service.bat → Run Tests → Standard tests → All configs; to install a strategy at startup, run service.bat → Install Service, then choose the strategy.

A strategy can also be started manually by running one of the general Batch files, for example general.bat; success is visible as winws.exe in the taskbar. The service.bat menu also handles removal, status checks, game/IPSet filters, DNS/hosts fixes, diagnostics and updates.

Constraints and caveats

• The tool is Windows-only and needs administrator rights for service installation and network resets. Extraction paths with Cyrillic or special characters are not supported.
• WinDivert can trigger antivirus flags, often labelled WinDivert or Not-a-virus:RiskTool.Multi.WinDivert. The README suggests adding an exclusion for the folder or disabling PUA detection, and explicitly recommends disabling PUA only if you understand the implications (README lines 3–33).
• Games and anticheats may complain about WinDivert, and some games require per-game IP/domain lists or Game Filter tuning; enabling ipset any broadly can break ordinary websites (README lines 197–210).
• Windows 7 requires the alternate WinDivert.dll and WinDivert64.sys from the bundle's win7 directory (README lines 151–154).
• Certain apps are outside the project's scope: Spotify users are blocked at the service level, and Telegram is better handled with Desktop plus a proxy (README lines 193–196).
• Licensing is stated as MIT (README lines 230–233).

HotRepo's take

Across the recorded daily snapshots, the repository moved from roughly 30,000 stars on 2026-06-24 to about 33,200 by 2026-09-13, with daily gains mostly in the 50–120 range and no recorded all-language daily rank. Stars alone do not tell us whether any particular strategy still works on a given ISP: the project itself treats strategies as perishable and needs users to test configurations locally. Its practical value therefore depends less on repository popularity than on the release you download, the upstream zapret build it packages, and whether your provider currently filters in a way the supplied strategies can defeat.