increased internet blockage at universities?

[Brian US]

I thought for the most part they do block some of the popular VPN websites. I have also spoken too soon, as I am still having connection problems.

[Kenny同志]

I was trying to sign up for a new e-mail account for my Paypal account to be created. It turns out Gmail, Yahoo Mail and AOL are all blocked. I bet most of other foreign e-mail services are blocked too.

What can we do about this?

[mikevwilliams]

I'm in Xiamen university and am experiencing the same problems. I have adsl in my dorm room which works the same speed as always, but if you connect to the university network (e.g. at the library) then the speed is painfully painfully slow. Using some of the free anti-firewall tools, some of them connect fine but will eventually get automatically cut off after some period of time, both in the dorm and on the university network, and some of them just won't connect at all.

Gmail is working fine for me (on both connections), and I haven't really experienced any blockage of it, though it can be very slow sometimes.

I'm not sure what can be done really. It's extremely annoying if you have to use a university network with the situation as it is now.

[Battosai]

Skylee:

I am curious, why do you choose gmail? I assume that gmail having problems on the mainland is just "normal", no? Why don't you choose sina or other local service?

In my company they use sina. It is one of the worst mail providers in the whole world. The only reason they chose it is because of some guanxi at the top. The sina guy probably took the boss to dinner and we are paying the price of using a retard inflexible system that is half as good as hotmail was 10 years ago. Gmail offers so many features that sina doesn't, for example searching for key words within emails is almost impossible in sina. Sina's interface doesn't make any sense and there are very few customization options. In addition it's fairly slow despite running on mainland servers.

tl;dr gmail is free and superior to paid chinese services in almost all aspects (except accessibly )

[sleepy eyes]

ALL foreign websites had been blocked inside my university. I haven't accessed the internet there in a few days, so I don't know about now. I tried a variety of different vpns and fg versions of old. Some would work for up to thirty seconds.

[skylee]

I agree that gmail is good. I use it all the time. But my point is Gmail is unreliable in Mainland China because of the blocking. Shouldn't Mainland users explore other options? Are there good emails that Mainland users can use without interruption? How about the email @live.com? or Hotmail? Are they accessible / reliable in China?

Sorry to hear that Sina email is no good. I also find Sinablog to be quite unsatisfactory.

[aristotle1990]

In terms of Chinese mail services, http://mail.163.com/ is pretty good, no?

[Battosai]

aristotle1990:

In terms of Chinese mail services, http://mail.163.com/ is pretty good, no?

Well, in terms of interface it is certainly better than sina. But in order to do the most simple things (say insert a picture in your email) you need to install plugins, why is that? Of course if you are the average Chinese user running Internet Explorer on an administrator account, the plugin will probably install itself without you knowing, but if you are running a modern browser with some reasonable security setting then it's possible you will not be able to install it at all. In gmail you just drag the pic into your (modern) browser and voila.

I do agree though that 163 is one of the best email providers in China

[Brian US]

Any clue on why or how long this will last? The internet is still blocked at Renmin University, but my classmates have mentioned it is possible (although slow) to access websites late at night. We had a discussion today in class about the issue, and our teacher was completely oblivious to the problem. She blamed it on the slow connection speed on campus and not by the government.

[langxia]

I have to say that I have no more problems than the usual ones. I had some problems with Wikipedia for 2 days last week or the week before but nothing else. And usually our university is one of the better observed universities due to the fact that there are many students belonging to minorities.

[ironbuttaxe]

All foreign sites blocked at all universities in Ningbo. Google and Gmail particularly targeted. Many foreign students now telling people back home not to come to China. Universities are facing loss of income, research, and talent as academics both foreign and Chinese now rethinking spending time in China.

[skylee]

Many foreign students now telling people back home not to come to China. Universities are facing loss of income, research, and talent as academics both foreign and Chinese now rethinking spending time in China.

This sounds logical. But I am not sure if there would be a big impact. I mean if they continue to give out generous and full scholarships, especially to less-developed countries, and if the costs of studying Chinese in Mainland China continue to be the lowest, students probably won't stop going to China.

[ironbuttaxe]

I agree with what you say, but that is probably a small part of the foreign student population and from which they draw little income or intellectual gain. Our university only has either exchange students or students coming to study Chinese or Business - and they bring considerable revenue to the university as they are primarily from Europe and Russia. And for example, Nottingham university, also in Ningbo, is entirely foreign staffed, and I've heard some say they will not be renewing their contracts if this continues. These are well-qualified people who can work in any country so why bother puttign up with this?

[skylee]

Ah Nottingham in Ningbo. Are you sure it is entirely foreign-staffed?

I think cost is a very important factor for those who (plan to) study in China, regardless of the subjects studied. I've formed this view based on comments on these forums (see this post).

But I agree that if people have better choices they don't need to put up with the internet blockage.