Telegram ban in India sparks a rush to VPNs, rival apps

As India cut off access to messaging app Telegram for a week over concerns about exam-related fraud, users turned to virtual private networks (VPNs) and alternative messaging apps in unusually large numbers.

App intelligence firm Appfigures told TechCrunch that Tuesday, the day India announced the Telegram restriction, marked the biggest day for VPN app downloads in the country since at least the start of 2025. Downloads of major VPN apps rose 49% from a recent daily average of 139,000 to 208,000, the firm said.

Proton VPN and Turbo VPN recorded some of the largest increases. Downloads of Proton VPN on Apple’s App Store in India jumped 113%, while Turbo VPN downloads rose 85%. On Google Play, downloads of Proton VPN climbed 64% and Turbo VPN downloads increased 35%. NordVPN’s App Store downloads increased 41%, while ExpressVPN downloads on Google Play rose 31%.

The surge also pushed several VPN services up India’s app-store charts. Proton VPN climbed from 18th to 5th in Apple’s Utilities rankings between June 16 and June 18, while its Google Play ranking rose from 8th to 2nd in the Tools category, according to Appfigures.

The spike in VPN demand followed India’s decision to temporarily restrict Telegram until June 22 over concerns that fraudsters were using the platform to target candidates ahead of a re-test for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate), the country’s largest entrance examination by applicant volume. The Indian government said the measure was needed to prevent the spread of fake exam papers and related scams. Telegram challenged the order in the Delhi High Court, arguing that authorities should target specific content rather than block the entire platform. The court, however, upheld the restriction on Friday.

The response extended beyond app-store download data. Proton said daily registrations from India rose 120% above baseline levels on Wednesday, after hourly registrations had already spiked 150% on Tuesday evening following the Telegram restriction. The company described the increase as “extremely noteworthy” given its existing scale in the country.

Canadian VPN service provider Windscribe reported a similar trend. The company told TechCrunch that signups from India peaked roughly 100% above baseline levels, while first-time downloads of its iOS app in the country rose about 89%.

“The spike in India follows the same general trend we see in areas that ban specific apps, introduce age bans or verification requirements, or otherwise restrict internet access,” Rebecca Rosenberg, growth operations manager at Windscribe, said.

Surfshark also reported higher demand from India, saying it had seen a roughly 30% increase in connectivity from the country since the restriction was announced earlier this week.

The trend was not limited to a handful of VPN providers. Sensor Tower told TechCrunch that downloads across the VPN app category in India rose 10% day-over-day on June 17, reversing a decline seen over the previous two weeks.

“Spikes in demand for VPNs tend to follow any kind of platform restriction, regardless of the reason behind it,” said Laura Tyrylyte, a privacy advocate at NordVPN. “When access to a tool people rely on is suddenly removed, they look for alternatives fast.”

Tyrylyte told TechCrunch that the response to Telegram’s restriction in India suggests users are becoming increasingly familiar with circumvention tools and are reacting more quickly to online restrictions than in the past.

Users also appeared to be exploring alternatives to Telegram. Appfigures said downloads of Signal in India rose 72% on Apple’s App Store and 322% on Google Play following the restriction, while Viber’s App Store downloads increased 216%.

Telegram-linked messaging app iMe recorded one of the sharpest jumps. Its Google Play downloads rose from a recent daily average of about 827 to 50,900 on June 16, Appfigures said.

Yet the restriction did not immediately translate into lower Telegram usage. Sensor Tower said Telegram’s daily active users in India rose 17% on the day the measure was announced — the app’s largest day-over-day increase in the country since a widespread outage of Meta’s services in 2021.

Other data points also suggest heightened efforts to access Telegram following the restriction.

Cloudflare Radar Lead Lai Yi Ohlsen told TechCrunch that DNS requests for Telegram domains in India increased sharply over the two days after the measure was announced. The company cautioned that higher DNS traffic does not necessarily indicate successful access to the platform, and could reflect users repeatedly attempting to reach Telegram after it was blocked.

Telegram pointed to its efforts to cooperate with authorities during hearings in the Delhi High Court this week. Its lawyers said the company had removed channels identified by authorities and questioned the need for a platform-wide restriction affecting what Telegram says are over 150 million users in India.

Government lawyers defended the measure as a temporary, event-linked response tied to the NEET re-test. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that a permanent ban could raise proportionality concerns but argued the current restriction had a “logical nexus” to the objective being pursued.

In its ruling on Friday, the court found that authorities had followed the prescribed procedure given the emergency nature of the order.

According to Surfshark’s Internet Shutdown Tracker, Telegram is currently blocked in 13 countries and has faced disruptions in at least 40 others over the years.

Such restrictions have often been followed by a surge in demand for circumvention tools. Sensor Tower said VPN downloads in the U.S. rose more than 40% week-over-week when TikTok was briefly removed from U.S. app stores in 2025, while Windscribe said it has observed similar patterns following restrictions in countries including Iran and Russia.

Note: This story was updated to add details of the Delhi High Court’s ruling upholding the Telegram restriction.