Has Google Forsaken Us?

[kailin]

I am having a terrible time accessing Google and Gmail from Beijing. Occasionally their sites will work but most of the time I get a "can not find server" screen. I can get to Google through Anonymouse. Is the web nanny now locking us out of Google? I don't think I can take it if the answer is yes. No such luck getting into my email via Anonymouse or any other way, unfortunately. Is anyone else experiencing this? Anyone know what's going on?

[roddy]

Don't use Gmail so i can't comment, but Google search has been fine for me, also in Beijing (broadband)

What kind of connection are you on? Uni, company, domestic broadband?

Roddy

[kailin]

I am on a university broadband connection. This problem has just cropped up in the last couple of days and I haven't tried accessing from anywhere outside my apartment.

[roddy]

I'd say it's a local issue with your internet provider - I'm also in Beijing, and have had no problems at all (and you know when I can't get to Google, because I stop answering questions)

Roddy

[dalaowai]

Have you tried adding https? When I was living in Zhejiang, I wasn't able to log into http://gmail.google.com. I used https://gmail.google.com and it worked for me.

Good luck.

[wushijiao]

At my office, for some reason I can't access Gmail or Hotmail through Internet Explorer. However, we can access it just fine with Firefox.

[atitarev]

Not quite on topic but can you force google to only look for specific characters, for example only for simplified or traditional and not for both?

I heard that google in China doesn't provide the "cached" link in your search results and filters heavily on the contents of the searched sites. Is it true?

[roddy]

Google's cache is blocked, but by China, not by Google. This is because it acts like a giant proxy - you used to be able to access a blocked site by clicking on the cached version.

Main search results aren't filtered at all - blocked sites appear, you just need to go via a proxy if you want to see them. However, the Chinese language version of Google News does have some sources removed if they are blocked in China - Google says there's no point in displaying the headlines from a source if users aren't going to be able to access the full story.

I think that's how it works, anyway.

Roddy

[smalldog]

It's an ISP thing. On broadband connections in Beijing and Hunan I have found google/gmail to occasionally become inaccessible for a day or two. Never any problems on dial-up though.

I've signed up to proxify.com (via the link on this site, so you should have some commission, Roddy!). However, I can't get it to work with gmail, despite the fact that it claims to work even with "heavily scripted sites".

[roddy]

Try contacting proxify - I've found the support really good, and I'd imagine they'd be keen to get it working with gmail. Have you enabled javascript in the options at the top?

Roddy

[trevelyan]

atitarev -- I believe Google runs on Unicode. So it will search on whatever character you give it. I don't think it can return pages in only the simplified or traditional form though, if that's what you mean.

[atitarev]

Thanks, Trevelyan.

[smalldog]

Try contacting proxify - I've found the support really good, and I'd imagine they'd be keen to get it working with gmail. Have you enabled javascript in the options at the top?

I've tried all sorts of options including proxify's own link to a proxified gmail. I won't bother contacting them about gmail as there are other sites I'm more interested in getting working.

As for searching Google for only simplified or traditional Chinese, it's simple: go to the advanced search options and make your selection from the language box.

[gato]

Atirev,

Try google advanced page. Set Language to either simplified or traditional chinese:

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

I sometimes restrict a search to only Chinese-encoded pages when I am looking for a Chinese transliteration of a European name.

Edit: sorry, didn't see that smalldog already answered the question.

[vengaya]

Had never had problems with gmail. Well, perhaps once or twice, yet nothing usual.

Yahoo mail does give me a headache now and then, though.

Not to mention many other pages...