Quick check on Google access just now

[roddy]

There should be some kind of support group for internet users in China. Can you get Google? Is this site blocked? When will Hotmail start working? Is someone reading my emails?

Anyway, haven't been able to get any Google services this morning, bar Google.cn - is anyone else seeing this? Or is it just me? Am I paranoid? Are they watching me . . .

[Jonny Wang]

I can get Google right now, but I have had trouble with it on and off for the past couple of days. Don't know what's up with it.

[gato]

google.com has been unreachable this morning from Beijing, unless with a proxy.

google.com.cn is still reachable.

[rose~]

Shanghai: google.co.uk has been sporadic the whole week, on and off, more on than off, works after several refreshes.

For me, google.cn is inaccessible and redirects to google.com [which is sporadic], though others say google.cn working and other googles inaccessible. Perhaps depends on isp?

I might sound cynical, but surely it's a matter of time before other country googles are blocked? Otherwise what would have been the point in enforcing filtering on google.cn.?

If google.co.uk is blocked it will be very [pop=trouble/máfan]麻煩[/pop] as UKers need it for UK-specific searches. Good-bye, Google.co.uk? We have shared so much together...

Hotmail and MSN started working again this week in Shanghai.

I wouldn't write anything in an email which you could be potentially compromising, after I met an Aussie woman whose friend was teaching English who told me how he got into some trouble, and the Police had a print-out of this guy's hotmail.True.

[roddy]

Moved posts on the bbc and gmail to other topics - it's my thread and I'm keeping it clean

Roddy

PS Mainly because there's nothing else I can do when Google isn't working.

[rose~]

Sorry, Roddy...

It does also cause real problems for me as when I am doing a translation I Google the hardest terms with some English thrown in and Google usually gives me a translation.

[johnd]

I had problems opening google.com yesterday and today in Shenzhen. I'd just installed GustomizeGoogle extension for Firefox and had been wondering if that was the problem. Obviously not! I've never had problems with google.com before. I hope we're not being forced onto google.cn!

[roddy]

I don't think so, it just came back for me for several minutes - of course I didn't even think 'wow, Google's back' - I just took it for granted until it disappeared again. My guess would be network issues somewhere along the line rather than a deliberate block of any kind.

Translating without Google's a major hassle, especially if you deal with a lot of . . . well . . . words . . .

[billybot]

http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en

Google [Anonymoused]

that is google through anonymouse, which seems to be working. it is a little slower and there are ads, but it works.

[venture160]

yea i need google for work as well, god I am starting to get used to yahoo.. what a piece of crap compared to google.

[roddy]

I'm not too badly off because I used a paid web-proxy which is very efficient (see here) but its still a hassle having to remember to use it - the number of times I've tried to use the Firefox search bar today and had to curse . . .

[billybot]

Hey Roddy, does that service work with Gmail?

[roddy]

To be honest I'm not sure as I don't use Gmail. It works with flash and javascript fine. However, as I understand it Gmail uses a lot of AJAX, which might be tricky.

Roddy

[roddy]

Just came back for a while. Went again. Hey ho . . .

[liuzhou]

How strange! I am having absolutely zero problem here and am on Google most of the day!

Having no Gmail problems either. It seems to be localised.

[roddy]

I'm sure it is, and I'm also pretty sure it's not a block, but some kind of network issue - and if it is a block, it's a kind I haven't seen before.

Reasons:

You get different error messages when you try to load Google when compared with other blocked sites. News.bbc.co.uk 'times out', but when you try to get Google, 'connection to server was reset' - this is on Firefox.

Try pinging both sites, and news.bbc.co.uk times out. Google replies to the ping consistently.

Google is still occasionally accessible - twice this morning for 10 minute periods, and that was just what I noticed.

There'd be no need to block Google - China's proved itself to be quite capable of blocking sections of Google - the cache, for example - and has keyword filtering technology.

I obviously can't be sure, but it looks to me much more like a network problem somewhere - perhaps infrastructure somewhere creaking under the sheer weight of Google traffic from China? Sounds unlikely, I know - rather than a deliberate block.

[ocpaul20]

When something isn't working (my email isn't at the moment - anyway, back to the topic) it is useful to do a traceroute on the destination. So use Start->run->cmd and when the MSDOS box comes up, type in

tracert www.google.com

This should show you the different 'hops' (computers on the internet) the internet does before it gets to the final destination. In this way you can actually see where the hold-up is. I admit that it only gives the IP address and sometimes the name of the server but you can generally make out where the 'hops' stop or at least which country they stop.

I have done one as above and it appears to get there, so maybe port 80 (the port browsers use) are blocked, I believe traceroute uses a different port. Google has been off for me for the last few days too. Wonder why?

Paul :-)

[bathrobe]

I was watching Google last Friday and its behaviour was rather weird.

The first thing I noticed was that google.com (whether in English, Chinese, or Japanese) was inaccessible.

Gmail was doing flipflops. At first, when the browser encountered "mail.google.com", it suddenly went haywire and came up with a not accessible message. Later gmail became accessible, and then inaccessible again. (I was also able to briefly access Japanese Google, but not search results).

Google.cn was, of course, accessible through all this.

Since Monday, everything except google.cn and gmail has been inaccessible.

I got the impression that I was watching the Chinese government (or whoever was operating on their behalf) twiddling their parameters to fine-tune the block. The desired result? A block of all Google sites except google.cn, and continued access to gmail -- perhaps it had some fans in the government!

[etcetera24]

ditto on my end with having trouble with Gmail access since the weekend/ late last week. Google.com seems to be fine but I constantly get the connection reset error with Gmail. I've gotten through for sporadic pockets of time during the past few days, but haven't been able to access the site all day today.

the situation is 非常麻烦, especially since I use gmail as my primary account.

[gato]

Those who're reporting problem, could you say who your internet provider is?

I ask this because gmail has been fine so far for me with Beijing's China Netcom, but I hear others who are accssing it from the campus network are having problems. Chinese universities uses a special university network that's separate from the civilian world, so could that be the culprit, so far as gmail is concern? google.com is blocked for me, too. But tor works as a get around.