VPN advice needed (May 2014)

[Triling]

I would need to be able to use it on my iPhone.

Will SSH work with iPhones?

[ChTTay]

I'm definitely going to try SSH. Had enough with VPN's out of Beijing.

 

Any concerns about buying one off 'some guy' from Taobao? Could they log or monitor my usage if they wanted to?

[Manuel]

I think our usage is monitored anyway, with or without a VPN/proxy, because somewhere along the route there's an ISP that can monitor your traffic if they so wish. However sensitive data such as passwords etc are usually encrypted as far as I know so that shouldn't be a problem. I'd say give it ago for a month and see if you like it. It's very cheap.

[imron]

Anything that travels over SSH will be encrypted to the server machine. The administrator of the server would be able to see and log all traffic if they had a mind to.

If you are technically minded you can run your own server. Digital ocean (no link as I'm on mobile, but google them for their website) offers Singapore based VPSes from $5 a month, which gives you a machine with SSH access.

[ChTTay]

Yeah, thats why I tend to look at a VPNs privacy policy before using. There was a link posted here of a rundown of different services (maybe compiled by torrent freak) that was really helpful. Mostly it looked at user data and logging.

Anyway, i've seen the digital ocean link in this topic thread. I'll check it out. I only really need unrestricted access for unfiltered search results and access to google. I'm not a massive facebook user. Access to youtube can be useful sometimes too.

So if digital ocean gives me a machine with SSH access... Whats the different between them and buying on taobao? I mean in terms of setting up this thing.

[imron]

Very little. If you can ssh in to a machine outside the firewall that should be all you need.

Just remember a Singapore based server will be faster, but a us based server will give you a us based IP address which might be useful for other things. Not sure how easy it is to mix and match locations once you have an account.

[Manuel]

You can have multiple simultaneous SSH connections and use different ports for each, each connection to a server in a different country. Using MyEnTunnel this is easy to do as you can run multiple instances of it.

[ChTTay]

Well, I'm not American and don't know what i'd need a US based server for. I'm good with Singapore as long as youtube, facebook and google works.

A UK server may be useful for iPlayer but i've found a lot of UK stuff makes it's way to youku anyway these days. Also, with my VPN at least, streaming from the UK was too slow.

Will give this a go as soon as i've got some free time. Thanks

[imron]

Well, I'm not American and don't know what i'd need a US based server for.

It's quite common to get around region blocks for things like Netflix (note also that I say this as an Australian, not an American.  Australians get a pretty raw deal with modern content distribution hence using a US IP to get around region blocking is perhaps far more common).  Substitute US for your country and any websites that use region blocking.

[feihong]

I decided to get a VPS from Digital Ocean for my current trip to China. It seems to be working pretty well so far. Initially I was using a VPS in San Francisco, but that was quite slow. I switched to Singapore and now my internet seems faster, even for sites that aren't partially blocked.

[daofeishi]

imron, what VPN technology do you use for your server?

 

I was in Hainan earler this year. I ran an OpenVPN instance on a DigitalOcean droplet, but no matter how I tried masking it by changing ports and connection parameters, the GFW kept discovering the connection and sent me spoofed tcp-reset packets/blocked the connection/throttled my connection speed. Are there any protocols that aren't easily compromised by the firewall? 

[gato]

OpenVPN is blocked by the GFW. IPSec and L2TP work better, though sometimes still blocked.

You can try installing the SoftEther multi-protocol VPN package for IPSec or L2TP.

[imron]

imron, what VPN technology do you use for your server?

I don't.  I port forward over SSH.

[daofeishi]

Ah, I guess that would work. And you don't experience any dropped connections, what with the large streams of encrypted data that the firewall presumably is able to flag?  

 

Gato, thanks for the tip. I've heard people have had mixed experiences with IPSec, but I'll give it a go next time. 

[gato]

It's a choice between "mixed experience" and "no experience", I am afraid.

To the poster who asked about iPhone, I haven't been able to find a SSH tunneling solution for iOS.

[imron]

And you don't experience any dropped connections, what with the large streams of encrypted data that the firewall presumably is able to flag?

Dropped connections happen from time to time but I'm not sure if that's active messing or just a problem with the connection.  My most recent experiences have all been using a 3G wireless dongle so it's tricky to tell.

 

Back when I was living full-time in China and had a more reliable broadband connection I didn't have any problems - but that was also 5 years ago now and I'm sure the GFW has changed somewhat in that time.

[joshssummers]

Interesting (and long) thread here. One question I saw earlier that I never saw answered was from the OP about a hybrid VPN that only connects when accessing blocked sites. It's useful because frankly there's no need for a VPN when viewing things like Youku, Taobao, or any other site that is either hosted in China or not blocked by China (and I can't remember who said this, but it is definitely NOT true that a VPN makes your internet speeds in China faster. Absolutely not the case).

 

I'm sure there are quite a few VPNs that do this, but I know that 12VPN has a "Hybrid VPN" option that only kicks in when you're accessing certain sites that are blocked here in China. It's been working well for me over the past few months.

 

This site I found has a video review of 12VPN, along with a few others that I think are good here in China:

 

http://www.travelchinacheaper.com/best-vpn-2014-options

 

One last thing: IMHO the words "reliable" and "connection" together are an oxymoron here in China.

[roddy]

"This site I found"

Josh, you're welcome to join and participate in the community. However, please note that we do try and maintain certain grammatical standards, and as such the correct way to link to your own site is "this site I founded", rather than "This site I found". Unless of course you were pretending it isn't your site, which I'm sure isn't true. For your reference.

[joshssummers]

Thanks for the tip, Roddy. I have to assume since you approved the comment that you see some value in what I've added to the conversation here. Your disapproval of my grammar - which was rightly deserved - has been noted. It's a shame you guys don't allow editing here...oh well.

[Shelley]

You can edit posts.

 

This is an edit. Bottom right in pale font is the word edit, roll over and it gets darker, click and it you can edit your post at any time.

 

Click show edit for this effect.

Edited October 4, 2014 at 04:32 PM by Shelley