Internet Blocks, the Great Firewall and VPNs

[Holly]

Alright, just downloaded the new version...hope it works for a long time!

[joshuawbb]

I have the new 7.03 Professional version too as well - anyone having trouble getting it can PM me too.

[gougou]

Google 'VPN China' or similar, I'm sure there are monthly plans out there.

They even sell those on Taobao...

[roddy]

I personally think I'd steer away from anything deliberately (and visibly) targeting the China market for the very simple reason that it's more likely to end up being blocked. Funny that you can buy those to Taobao though . . .

[ksl0588]

I've heard you can't access most sites (such as google, youtube, etc) when in China, and heard that you can use a VPN to you can view these blocked websites. So, how does this vpn thing work? And where do you get it?

[Chinadoog]

just got back to china a few days ago, and proXPN works quite well. it's working a lot better than freegate ever has for me

[liuzhou]

I've heard you can't access most sites

That is an exaggeration. The vast majority of sites are available. A few sites are not. Unfortunately, some of these are highly popular sites in the west. Facebook and YouTube are the ones most often mentioned. Google is available via the Hong Kong servers. However, keyword filtering may prevent some controversial searches. For every day use, you probably won't notice any difference.

A VPN is a Virtual Private Network.To cut a long story short, these work by encrypting everything sent from your computer,so that the internet provider doesn't know what you are looking at. This is the same technology that banks etc use to send confidential information. There is a more detailed explanation here. 

VPNs are offered by various companies, some of which have already been mentioned on this very thread. Look back..

[thewamphyri]

Frgate seems to have an issue with sites needing cookies (ie flickr), I can not for the life of me work out how to set such a setting (assuming it exists).

Any help?

703.b2

Using Firefox.

[gato]

Flickr is no longer blocked. You should be able to connect to it directly.

By the way, FG 7.04 is out. If you can't access the mothership, you can download it here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/417626150/f_g704x.rar

[liuzhou]

Frgate seems to have an issue with sites needing cookies

As I recall, this is a Firefox issue rather than FG. The Firefox forums should have something useful to fix the problem. (I gave up Firefox a long time ago.)

[gougou]

Using Firefox.

Agree with liuzhou, that's a problem with Firefox. I like Firefox, but when I need Freegate, I just use IE and everything works like a charm.

[gato]

Maybe he can upgrade to the latest version of Firefix. It's running alright on my six-year-old laptop (though Office 2010 struggles a bit). I am waiting for USB 3.0 to become popular before upgrading (est. 2012).

[thewamphyri]

Thanks for the replies.

Answers:

- I have the same issue in IE.

- Unless there has been a new version in the last two weeks I have the latest Fx browser.

- Flickr only part works, any pictures (so all recent pictures) on farm 4 or 5 (ie http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/4941418920_d811c7d51c_b_d.jpg) do not work.

- I will try the latest version.

Thanks.

[Prodigal Son]

I've been using Freedur for about a year and it's been working out fantastically.

[aroberts42]

My husband and I live a lot of our lives online, so we were really worried about the Great Firewall. But we subscribed to Astrill. It is really great and worth every penny. It is $10 per month is you just buy it month to month, but if you buy it for 6 months at a time, it is only like $6 a month. It is easy to use and download, works all the time, there are no limits, and there is live chat support if you do have issues. We love it and would reccommend it to everyone.

[Holly]

Freegate was working for me okay but now I keep getting a "no server is available" error. Anyone know why?

[Tianjin42]

Hi,

Just a quick query. Obviously a few sites are blocked here in China - Facebook and Youtube, for example. I am aware that one could get around this by purchasing a vpn but are there any other free methods/ sites that any of you would recommend? There are obviously a number of possible methods but I'd like to check if any of you have had good experiences with one in particular.

Thank you kindly.

M

(This has been moved from a stand alone thread)

[calamindos]

Related thread a few lines below yours

[kdavid]

In my experience, the free sites get blocked often and are not reliable.

If you plan on doing a good amount of firewall vaulting, you should invest in a VPN. http://www.remotevpn.net offers a great service at a low cost. Only US$4/month if you pay for 3 months at a time.

I've been using their service for over 6 months now, and I'm very happy with them.

[roddy]

Merging. I've also renamed the topic to increase the likelihood of it being found on searches.