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This actually surprises me for how much effort Microsoft puts into being compliant with China. Last year China took down Yahoo! too, despite Yahoo's relationshi
by idrios 8y ago
This actually surprises me for how much effort Microsoft puts into being compliant with China. Last year China took down Yahoo! too, despite Yahoo's relationship with Alibaba.
I was an expat last year and with Google (& DuckDuckGo) blocked I already had pretty few options of search engine. Short of learning enough Chinese to manage Baidu, I can't imagine how hard it would be to use internet as a foreigner in China now.
- r3bl 8y agoI've seen business travelers carrying two smartphones: one for the Chinese Internet, and the other one for going around the firewall.
- lostlogin 8y agoHow do they go around it with the second? Edit: ardy42 answered this below. Foreign phones from home country provider seem to be exempt.
- MichaelMoser123 8y agois it possible to use a VPN in the PR of China?
- slickbuntu 8y agoIt's tricky. But doable. I know because I have done it on all three of my trips there.
- yourbandsucks 8y agoEvery 2nd English language page, visited from China, will be full of ads for expressVPN.
- drewmate 8y agoI'm curious what challenges you faced. I went once (a little over 3 years ago) and used a vpn fairly frequently (on and off as needed.) I think I even found and signed up for one while completely behind the great firewall. Now, of course, I'd recommend setting it all up before going, but I've heard that it's still relatively commonplace for Westerners and PRC mostly turns a blind eye.
- cocoggu 8y agoI've been there for a while (2 years straight and more than 6 years since my first trip), I used many different VPNs providers and even setup my own servers. Although the company is a bit shady and I'm pretty sure they have some connection with the party, Astrill is the best to use in terms of performance, bandwidth and ease of use. They recently added WireGuard support which is blazing fast. However, if your priority is privacy, probably you should use your own server, or just stay out of China.
- idrios 8y agoMyself and all my friends paid for ExpressVPN. Much easier to get working if you have it installed before you go there, but not impossible
- ardy42 8y agoI don't know, but if you bring in a foreign phone to China with international data roaming, you can still access the uncensored internet with it. The data appears to be routed separately over the phone network, and it appears to exit from your carrier in your home country.
- lordnacho 8y agoI've heard this is a temporary thing to make it easier for visitors, and it will stop working if you stay too long.
- ardy42 8y ago> I've heard this is a temporary thing to make it easier for visitors, and it will stop working if you stay too long. It is, but my understanding is that's because roaming is expensive for your home carrier, so they'll cancel your account due to unprofitability if you spend too much time roaming with it. See the fine print in this T-Mobile document: https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-3226 https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-3226 > Not for extended international use; you must reside in the U.S. and primary usage must occur on our U.S. network. Device must register on our U.S. network before international use. > ... > Network Management: Service may be slowed, suspended, terminated, or restricted for misuse, abnormal use, interference with our network or ability to provide quality service to other users, or significant roaming.
- thodin 8y agoThey've got firewall (from US company Palo Alto Networks, btw), to block GTP traffic over GRX (which is used for roamers) based on their rules. And unrestricted access is already unavailable in Tibet and Xinjiang.
- curt15 8y agoAlso what about ssh?
- jamp897 8y agoIt works quite well, but you need a host that isn’t blocked, and they tend to block AWS IPs, so you have to change the IP every now and then. For browsing SwitchyOmega works well with ssh.
- gruez 8y agoThey can definitely detect it: http://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewall-of-china/ http://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewal...
- NamTaf 8y agoThere's several well-known ones that work, and additional projects like Streisand[1] which exist to allow a roll-your-own solution. In all cases, VPNs that work are ones that obfuscate that they're VPNs via varying methods. Otherwise, as others have said, mobile roaming data is functionally identical in that the data appears to the internet as having come from your home country. Hong Kong offer a few plans that are (relatively) affordable and roam into the mainland. [1]: https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- arrivance 8y ago> Last year China took down Yahoo! too, despite Yahoo's relationship with Alibaba. I mean, by last year that relationship stopped existing (as Yahoo!'s Ali shares would be with Altaba).
- tryonqc 8y agoI showed a google map to a police officer (border control on the highway) to show where I was going, no problem. Had setup a few VPN on my iphone before going to have options in case one or two got flagged. My uni VPN worked during my entire stay.
- 2stop 8y agoIf you have a foreign phone and turn on international roaming the firewall Doesn't apply. Has been my experience.
- jamp897 8y agoMy AT&T iPhone wasn’t blocked when roaming in China, it seems they make exceptions for foreign phones. They’re censors are very clever at knowing where the limits are.
- cauldron 8y agoCoz your roaming data are literally in an AT&T VPN all the way back to America.
- paradoxparalax 8y agoVirtually anyone in China, even the Chinese people, just use a VPN or SSH, or both, and your internet is ok.
- idrios 8y agoBut with the crackdowns happening on VPN there still needs to be legitimate options. In my case I was an English teacher, and often we'd need to find resources from the internet for supplementary teaching materials. Can't have VPN on the school computers
- paradoxparalax 8y agoWell, then you already want too much, right? VPN will give access to the Kids in the school to Porn and who knows what. So.... China is still a dictatorship, right, It is not the Disneyland. But Even in England you cannot install a VPN at a school's computer......
- alecco 8y agoHow many social points do they strike when they find you use a VPN?
- paradoxparalax 8y agoI really like your comment, I think is the best comment I have ever read in Hackernews, I mean, I say for the sake of Fun, not for work or science or knowledge,... ...But for Entertainment, for the pure Fun itself, This was the best comment I ever read, And this proves that Hackernews is still not going the way of the Dodo[1] (in this case, the way of Slashdot)... And proves that, sofar, alecco is the smartest (or at least the funniest in a smart way ) guy in Hackernews. There is a reason Professor Moriarty's bits always converge, and the reason was the Pure Fun, off course. I almost forgot to answer the question: The Chinese Cops use VPN's to watch Japanese Porn together with their wives and girlfriends, if they are not married yet, , because the Cops are not machines, so... I think they will let this one pass unpunished... Unless you are using a VPN to scorch the chinese President in public like I do: Xi Jin Pin is a Incompetent War Monger !!! I Want HuJinDao Back !!!!!!! So, in this case, if they catch me using my VPN to do what I am doing here, so I will loose a lot of social points, my friend, and I will... BEI HEXIE LE ( Get Harmonized ). Probably 1 full year in Jail, if they catch me saying what I am saying using a VPN. So I am a Brave guy , Right? 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo