Yes, it's such a shame people are spamming Signal proxies when Briar is the one most deserving of attention. Especially considering Briar works without internet and Iran has a history of shutting off the internet.

along the same line...

freemesh for wifi AP based mesh networks. not as convenient as briar, but considering the situation having multiple modes of communication seems like a good hedge.

  https://freemeshwireless.com/

also, if you can get a hold of lora wan based devices, e.g. esp32 w/ lorawan, you can set up a lorawan based mesh network with wifi entry points.

  https://meshtastic.org/

+1 if y'all can explain the UX of these apps to regular folks, it's much harder to censor individual Bluetooth connections run on mobile phones than a server in a data center. If y'all can risk sending mules to a gathering to run messages between folks, it'll keep you going even if the internet gets cut off from DCs.

Worst case a mule gets captured or turns to the government in which case those messages are lost. That's all.

There's https://berty.tech/ as well. Not sure if it's as mature yet though (https://berty.tech/blog/berty-not-war-ready/)

Yeah I think this is the way. Trying to setup VMs and proxies to get outside internet working is a lost cause IMHO. They need apps that work with a mesh networks and keep things local using wifi and bluetooth. This is the way.

Briar has been translated to Persian 100%. This is a good indicator that is must be in widespread use in Iran