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The article states to use a VPN, but China has now cracked down on them: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/china-vpn-cleanup-great-firewall-ce

The article states to use a VPN, but China has now cracked down on them: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/china-vpn-cleanup-great-firewall-censorship https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/23/china-vpn... Your best best (if you can survive on web only) is to ssh to a server outside the country using the "-D" option which creates a socks proxy, then use firefox to connect.. I tried with chrome but it kept trying to make direct DNS requests (which don't work) and I was unable to fix it. I was there June, 2016.

yorwba 9y ago
The "crackdown" had precisely zero effect on vpn usage for anyone I know.
- topmonk 9y ago
  Odd, because when I tried using OpenVPN on my own server in Japan, it kept timing out. I thought it was due to this: https://www.vpnanswers.com/bypass-great-firewall-hide-openvpn-in-china-2015/ https://www.vpnanswers.com/bypass-great-firewall-hide-openvp...
  - yorwba 9y ago
    Yes, OpenVPN or really any of the standard VPN protocols are blocked. But this has been the case for a long time before the "new" regulation was introduced. My point was more that everyone was already using a VPN that wasn't blocked, and that didn't change. (I guess they bribe the government or have an agreement to monitor traffic, or else they are not big enough to care about.)
rahimnathwani 9y ago
I live in China, and have many friends who also live in China. ssh -D is not the best way to access things outside China. There are many other ways. The best current methods I know of are Shadowsocks (what I use), or ShadowsocksR, or Shadowsocks over obfsproxy. Although the Shadowsocks protocol presents as a socks proxy, there are clients for iOS (e.g. Potatso 2), Android and routers (e.g. those available at koolshare's web site) which make it transparent to use (and they deal with your DNS issue as well, by tunneling DNS through the proxy).
- StavrosK 9y ago
  How is shadowsocks better? I looked at the page but nothing immediately jumped out...
  - rahimnathwani 9y ago
    How is it better than ssh -D, you mean? I thought I answered that above: "Although the Shadowsocks protocol presents as a socks proxy, there are clients for iOS (e.g. Potatso 2), Android and routers (e.g. those available at koolshare's web site) which make it transparent to use (and they deal with your DNS issue as well, by tunneling DNS through the proxy)." How would you use ssh -D to reroute your iPad traffic? How would you set up DNS? How would you help your non-technical friends who wanted to set this up? Put more simply: - Easy to set up the server - Easy to set up devices (Windows, OSX, Android, iOS 9+) so that you can connect in a couple of clicks, and the right traffic goes via the tunnel - It's reliable (in the past 1+ years I've been using it, I've experienced none of the slow-downs or blocking I experienced using other protocols, including ssh, PPTP, L2TP and OpenVPN).
    - StavrosK 9y ago
      I see, thank you. I was wondering whether it was just an app, or just a protocol, or what protocol it used, but I see now that it's an app that uses its own protocol, so it makes a bit more sense to me, thanks.
netheril96 9y ago
The crackdown only applies to local VPN providers, that is, providers located within the mainland. The majority of VPN providers, which are usually based on Western countries, are not affected, unless added to that blacklist of GFW. And ssh is not the best way. shadowsocks is.

yorwba 9y ago

The "crackdown" had precisely zero effect on vpn usage for anyone I know.

topmonk 9y ago
Odd, because when I tried using OpenVPN on my own server in Japan, it kept timing out. I thought it was due to this: https://www.vpnanswers.com/bypass-great-firewall-hide-openvpn-in-china-2015/ https://www.vpnanswers.com/bypass-great-firewall-hide-openvp...
- yorwba 9y ago
  Yes, OpenVPN or really any of the standard VPN protocols are blocked. But this has been the case for a long time before the "new" regulation was introduced. My point was more that everyone was already using a VPN that wasn't blocked, and that didn't change. (I guess they bribe the government or have an agreement to monitor traffic, or else they are not big enough to care about.)

rahimnathwani 9y ago

I live in China, and have many friends who also live in China. ssh -D is not the best way to access things outside China. There are many other ways. The best current methods I know of are Shadowsocks (what I use), or ShadowsocksR, or Shadowsocks over obfsproxy. Although the Shadowsocks protocol presents as a socks proxy, there are clients for iOS (e.g. Potatso 2), Android and routers (e.g. those available at koolshare's web site) which make it transparent to use (and they deal with your DNS issue as well, by tunneling DNS through the proxy).

StavrosK 9y ago
How is shadowsocks better? I looked at the page but nothing immediately jumped out...
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  How is it better than ssh -D, you mean? I thought I answered that above: "Although the Shadowsocks protocol presents as a socks proxy, there are clients for iOS (e.g. Potatso 2), Android and routers (e.g. those available at koolshare's web site) which make it transparent to use (and they deal with your DNS issue as well, by tunneling DNS through the proxy)." How would you use ssh -D to reroute your iPad traffic? How would you set up DNS? How would you help your non-technical friends who wanted to set this up? Put more simply: - Easy to set up the server - Easy to set up devices (Windows, OSX, Android, iOS 9+) so that you can connect in a couple of clicks, and the right traffic goes via the tunnel - It's reliable (in the past 1+ years I've been using it, I've experienced none of the slow-downs or blocking I experienced using other protocols, including ssh, PPTP, L2TP and OpenVPN).
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    I see, thank you. I was wondering whether it was just an app, or just a protocol, or what protocol it used, but I see now that it's an app that uses its own protocol, so it makes a bit more sense to me, thanks.

netheril96 9y ago

The crackdown only applies to local VPN providers, that is, providers located within the mainland. The majority of VPN providers, which are usually based on Western countries, are not affected, unless added to that blacklist of GFW. And ssh is not the best way. shadowsocks is.