Mass blocking of VPNs in China

There’s lots of bad news for people using VPNs in China to by-pass the censorship as recently the GFW (Great Firewall) has been upgraded to block VPN protocols.

Major VPN providers have been blocked according to Techcrunch, Reuters and Global Times (Chinese site citing official sources).
The Chinese government’s move is bad on many levels, and it is not only affecting expats who want to get in touch with friends and families, but it also affects businesses who need access to the uncensored Internet (as we know it) for work/business purposes.

We aren’t sure what is the real intention of the Communist regime: remind everyone that they are “in control”? Are they afraid of something? Do they want to completely cut-off access to Internet out of China and force everyone to use only the domestic, government controlled services?

Time will tell, but it doesn’t look good and it’s likely that things can only get worse.

What to do?

Use some of the less-know VPN providers. Before signing-up, ask them if their service works in China. If it does, don’t tell anyone on the Internet. Keep it for yourself or only share with close friends. Don’t sign-up for one year or more in advance, even if pricing could be much better. There’s no guarantee that the service will work later this year.

Learn more about Internet & VPNs in China from our detailed article.

Internet connections are often throttled or very slow during peak times. Adjust your daily schedule to use them when the bottlenecks imposed by the China ISPs are not into effect. Wake up at 5-6AM if that’s what it takes to get a decent connection speed to foreign services.

If you are technically skilled and not afraid of a Linux terminal, setup your own VPN on a VPS. Check our guides for OpenVPN on Debian/Ubuntu VPSSSH/SOCKS5 tunneling and PPTP

Do you have other tips? share them with us!

 

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