Surok in Firefox and a new exit in Spain

Two pieces of news in one day: Mozilla has reviewed and published Surok's extension for Firefox, and a ninth country has appeared on the exit map.

Firefox: installs from the official store

The extension is now on addons.mozilla.org. Press "Add to Firefox", confirm the permissions, and Surok appears next to the address bar. No archives, developer mode or manual updates: Firefox pulls new versions itself.

It works the same as in Chrome and Yandex Browser:

• one button turns protection on and off for all browser traffic;
• choice of exit: "Europe · auto", the Netherlands, Poland, Estonia, Germany, USA, Canada, Switzerland and now Spain;
• Russian sites go directly: Gosuslugi, banks, Yandex and a thousand more addresses don't see a foreign address and don't complain;
• your own lists: which sites go through Surok and which don't;
• protection from address leaks via WebRTC.

The subscription is shared with the apps. One account works on phone, computer and in the browser; the device limit is counted per plan.

Buy and renew without leaving the extension

In the latest version the subscription is bought right in the extension window. Choose the number of devices and the term, pay via SBP, crypto or Telegram Stars, and the payment status updates by itself. If you're outside Russia, instead of rubles you'll see a subscription in dollars payable with a card of any country, with three free days for new subscribers.

How Firefox differs from Chrome

Inside it's the same extension, but the browsers have different proxy mechanisms. In Chrome Surok sets rules through a PAC script, in Firefox it intercepts every request via proxy.onRequest. For you there's no difference, but for us it meant a separate review at Mozilla: they read the source code of every version by hand, which is why Firefox came out a few days after Chrome.

Spain: the ninth exit

The new server is in Barcelona. From Russia the same entry leads to it as to the other countries, so in the apps and the extension Spain simply appeared in the list, nothing to reconfigure.

Why another European country when there are the Netherlands and Germany:

• Spanish services. Some video catalogues, sports broadcasts and banking apps open only from a Spanish address.
• Spare capacity for blocking. Every exit is a separate provider and a separate network. The more there are, the lower the chance that the next wave of blocking hits all of them at once.
• Direct connection for those abroad. If you're physically in Europe, the app connects to Barcelona directly, without going through Moscow, and "Fastest server" picks it when it's the closest.

There are now nine exits: the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, Estonia, USA, Canada, Switzerland, Spain and the shared "Europe · auto", which picks the fastest European one itself.

What's next

Next up is the Google Play app with a country picker for the whole world; it's already in testing. The easiest way to follow the news is the bot @surokvpnbot: the first day free is there too, if you don't have an account yet.