Snowflake is a pluggable transport that proxies traffic through temporary proxies using WebRTC, a peer-to-peer protocol with built-in NAT punching. It aims to work kind of like flash proxy, but without flash proxy's problems with NAT.
How to run a Snowflake proxy
1. Firstly make sure you have WebRTC enabled. Then you can install this addon for Firefox which will let you become a Snowflake proxy. It can also inform you about how many people you have helped in the last 24 hours.
2. In a browser where WebRTC is enabled:
Go to https://snowflake.torproject.org/ and click the Yes button to opt in to being a proxy.
Go to https://snowflake.torproject.org/snowflake and watch the status messages. You shouldn't close that page if you want to remain a snowflake bridge.
3. First you will need to install and configure Go to build the standalone proxy-go code. If you are running Ubuntu or Debian, you can install Go by executing apt install golang. Otherwise visit https://golang.org/dl/. Once it is installed, set up your workspace and environment variables (more detailed instructions here: https://golang.org/doc/code.html#Workspaces).
mkdir -p ~/go/src
echo "export GOPATH=$HOME/go" >> ~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile
Clone the #Source code the src/ directory of your workspace.
cd $GOPATH/src
git clone https://git.torproject.org/pluggable-transports/snowflake.git
Get the dependencies and build the source code.
cd proxy-go
go get
go build
For our fallback proxy-go instances on snowflake-broker, we manage proxy-go instances using runit. However, a simpler nohup command will also allow you to run an instance in the background. nohup ./proxy-go &
How to use it:
2018-11-30: Snowflake is included in alpha releases of Tor Browser for GNU/Linux and macOS. Not Windows yet.
Further integration of Snowflake into Tor Browser is being tracked at ticket #19001.
To build from source code, first see doc/TorBrowser/Hacking, doc/TorBrowser/BuildingWithGitian, and gitian/README.build. In the tor-browser-build directory, make alpha or make testbuild will result in browsers with included Snowflake.