Internet Blocks, the Great Firewall and VPNs

[studychinese]

I can confirm that China is currently much more hardcore in their blocking of the internet than this time two years ago. Even my VPN, which worked at the time, isn't working in China at the moment, which is extremely frustrating as at least here in Shanghai google seems to be blocked entirely, including google maps.

[self-taught-mba]

Astrill is blocked and live.com/outlook just got attacked. Email options at this point are?

[ChTTay]

I'm using www.hotmail.co.uk right now.

[MoTzu]

Actually I'm in China using Astrill right now and having no problems.

I also use my hotmail.com and outlook.com email accounts here on a daily basis with out the vpn and having no problems.

[xiaokaka]

Anyone having problems opening the Chinese language version of Wikipedia in the last few days? Isn't opening for me at all, but it doesn't go to auto error message, but instead loads for a really long time until it fails. Just tried the Cantonese, Classical and Wu versions now and they all work...

[Demonic_Duck]

I noticed that a little while ago. I guess it must be blocked or semi-blocked. Other Wikipedias seem to have no problem.

 

Ugh, that sucks. Especially as Baidupedia is so messy, often poorly researched, and half the time steals content from Wikipedia anyway (don't get me wrong, I still use it, but I'd generally go to the Wikipedia article first if there is one).

 

...I mean, I have a VPN, but that's always just one extra layer of 麻煩.

[CH09]

Wow! 17.24% voted they give up. That's how you become brainwashed people    

[sunluosi]

Yeh, I'm basically without a reliable VPN at the moment. A year or so ago I'd be frantically searching for a new one but now I'm a bit 'meh' about it. Think I've been here for a while, so sort of used to internet problems and not fussed about it anymore.

[歐博思]

Running ExpressVpn at the moment and Facebook is not working even while connected, but other blocked websites are accessible. Any strange things like this happening to anyone else?

[Saxondale]

^having the exact same issue when trying to connect to Facebook over 3/4G 

[L-F-J]

I'm using (used) a different VPN but can no longer reach the servers. Pretty sure the gov. is blocking them as it started a few days before the "celebration".

[PaulSeyz22]

Hi everyone,

 

Might anyone be able to recommend a VPN to potentially use in China? The most essential sites I use are wikipedia and google, so it would be of great help if I had something that could easily access these. Occasionally I will go on Facebook and I use Gmail frequently. I use a Mac and an iPhone. I am a bit overwhelmed by the selections and since some of them appear to work inconsistently and different ones appear better at different times, might anyone be able to provide an updated recommendation as of February 2016?

 

Thank you!

[ChTTay]

None of them are reliable in Beijing. There's always somebody who will say "oh my VPN is great" then the next week they'll also complain how it doesn't work anymore.

Some of the most frequently suggested ones are StrongVPN, Astrill, ExpressVPN...

If you're outside of Beijing I think they tend to work better.

[889]

I use PureVPN and find I'm very very lucky if I can connect, and that's usually outside Beijing.

(Pure has good service elsewhere, but frustrating to use in Mainland China.)

[Saxondale]

I'm convinced all the popular VPN services are generally the same in terms of reliability (some are a bit more proactive with workarounds when their services are blocked).  They all use the same protocols and connect to very similar server locations, so it's hard to recommend a service over another when talking about connection success rate.  I would look at bandwidth, amount of servers, cost, software and how VPN companies treat your privacy - i find VyprVPN ranks fairly high when taking all of those points into account, but i switch to ExpressVPN and NordVPN from time to time.

[Guest realmayo]

Has anyone else noticed an uptick in blocking in the last few days? bing, outlook, telegraph.co.uk are down for me and are now marked as blocked on http://www.blockedinchina.net.

[889]

Bing should work. Try bing.cn if there's a problem with bing.com. Not that bing is worth that much effort to reach.

[Guest realmayo]

Please be more specific. Are you in mainland china and currently able to access cn.bing.com?

[889]

As of a few days ago I was and could -- bing.cn. And that site you referenced shows both bing.cn and bing.com available in China, so I don't understand why you say it shows as blocked.

[Guest realmayo]

Bing.cn redirects to a site called rz.com