Understanding VPN Protocols

Traditional VPN protocols (OpenVPN, WireGuard) are designed for privacy and performance, but they're easily fingerprinted by deep packet inspection systems like China's Great Firewall. Modern proxy protocols solve this by making VPN traffic look indistinguishable from normal web traffic.

VLESS (Recommended)

VLESS is the newest and most efficient protocol. Key characteristics:

• No encryption overhead — relies on TLS for the transport layer
• XTLS-Reality support — the cutting-edge anti-detection technique that impersonates real websites' TLS fingerprints
• Lowest latency of the three protocols
• Best for: Most users, especially in China

The Reality feature is particularly powerful: it makes your VPN traffic look like you're accessing a legitimate major website (e.g., Microsoft, Apple), making it extremely difficult to block without also blocking those real sites.

Trojan

Trojan was specifically designed to bypass the GFW by masquerading as HTTPS traffic.

• Designed from the ground up for censorship circumvention
• Very stable and well-proven
• Slightly more overhead than VLESS
• Best for: Users who find VLESS unstable on their network, or in regions with aggressive blocking

VMess

VMess is the original protocol from the V2Ray project.

• More configurable than VLESS and Trojan
• Supports WebSocket transport (useful for CDN fronting)
• Higher overhead than VLESS
• Best for: Advanced users who need WebSocket + CDN configurations, or where VLESS/Trojan are blocked

Which One Should You Use?

Situation	Recommended Protocol
Most users (China, default)	VLESS + XTLS-Reality
VLESS not working	Trojan
Both blocked	VMess + WebSocket + TLS
Slowest connection	Try all three, pick fastest

In Vexonik's app, the Auto setting tries protocols in order of expected performance for your location. For most users, this is the best choice.