What Is Zapret?
Zapret is a tool for bypassing DPI (Deep Packet Inspection), the technology providers use to inspect and block traffic. The zapret-discord-youtube bundle by Flowseal ships with ready-made strategies for Windows that restore access to Discord, YouTube and other services. Zapret is not a VPN: your traffic never passes through third-party servers. Only the way packets are sent changes, so the provider's inspection system fails to recognize the connection.
Requirements
- Windows 10 or Windows 11 (Windows 7 requires replacing the WinDivert driver files)
- Administrator rights to install the autostart service
- A browser with Secure DNS support (Chrome, Firefox, Edge)
Download
Download the archive from the latest release page of the official GitHub repository (Flowseal/zapret-discord-youtube only). The zip, rar and tar.gz archives contain identical files — pick whichever your archiver opens. If your antivirus blocks the download, try a different archive format or pause protection temporarily.
Installation
Zapret does not have an installer — "installing" means extracting the archive to a permanent location. Two details matter here: unblocking the archive and choosing the right folder.
- Open the downloaded archive's Properties and tick "Unblock" (you can skip this if you extracted with 7-Zip or PeaZip)
- Extract to a folder whose path contains no non-Latin characters, spaces or special symbols — for example C:\zapret
Basic Configuration: Secure DNS
Before the first launch, enable Secure DNS. This is a hard requirement: without it the provider can forge DNS responses and the bypass will not work, no matter which strategy you pick.
- Chrome: Settings → Privacy and security → Security → "Use secure DNS" → choose a provider other than the default one
- Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → "DNS over HTTPS" → "Custom" → for example https://dns.google/dns-query (Cloudflare may be blocked)
- Windows 11: Secure DNS can be enabled in the network settings — recommended
- Keenetic routers: enable the "Transit DNS requests" option, otherwise Secure DNS on the computer may not work
Starting Zapret
Whether a strategy works depends on your provider and region, so you do not pick one by guessing — you test. The bundle ships several strategies as files named general.bat, general (ALT).bat and so on, and service.bat can benchmark all of them for you.
- Run service.bat
- Choose Run Tests → Standard tests → All configs
- Wait for the results: the utility shows which strategies currently work
- Run the file of a working strategy, for example general.bat or general (ALT13).bat
A minimized console window for winws.exe with a padlock icon appears on the taskbar — that means the bypass is running. Closing that window stops it. To have the strategy start automatically with Windows, run service.bat as administrator, choose Install Service and enter the number of the working strategy.
Checking Status
service.bat → Check Status shows whether the autostart service is installed and whether the WinDivert driver is active. Use it after installing the service and after every update — it is the fastest way to confirm Zapret is actually working.
Testing Connectivity
- YouTube: open youtube.com — videos should play without buffering. If they do not, disable your ad blocker and try another strategy
- Discord: open the app. If it hangs on connecting, run service.bat → Run Diagnostics → Discord cache cleanup, then check https://discord.com/app in the browser
Updating
Strategies age: a configuration that works today may stop working after the provider changes its filtering rules, and new releases ship updated strategies. To update:
- Restart the computer
- Run service.bat → Remove Services
- Delete the old folder
- Download the latest release, unblock the archive and extract it to a new folder
- Test the strategies again and install the working one as a service
Troubleshooting
- Stop a manually started bypass: close the winws console window (with the padlock icon) on the taskbar
- Remove the autostart service: service.bat → Remove Services
- Check for leftovers: service.bat → Check Status
- No strategy works at all: run netsh winsock reset, netsh int ip reset all, netsh winhttp reset proxy and ipconfig /flushdns in an administrator command prompt, then restart and re-test
FAQ
- Is Zapret a virus? No — antivirus warnings about WinDivert are false positives. Add the folder to your antivirus exclusions.
- Why did a working strategy stop? Providers update their DPI rules. Re-run the strategy tests or update to the latest release.
- Do I need to keep the window open? Only for a manually started strategy. Installed as a service, winws runs invisibly in the background.