susiesan

I plant to take my netbook with me for my 16 days in China trip in October. All of the hotels I'm staying at will have either wifi or internet access with ethernet. Will I be able to turn on the netbook, launch Firefox as a browser, connect to the hotel network with a password they give me, and then go to any website I want? Should I bring my own ethernet cord?

Or will certain websites be blocked. I'd mainly be going to yahoo (for email and news, Tripadvisor, Flyertalk, Googlemaps, airline web sites (to check schedules), some CHines hotel sites like eLong and CTrip, and DrudgeReport. I'd also be going to Skype once I figure out how to use it to make phone calls.

In every other country I've visited and have gone online, this is all I had to do. If web access in China requires some special software or workaround, please explain it to me in plain English. I'm not a computer geek.

Xie Xie, Susie

rkkwan

Yes, you should bring an ethernet cable. While there should be one in your room, I often find it in poor shape, the tab in the plug broken, etc.

Sites like Facebook and YouTube are likely to be blocked. You can use a VPN service, or install the Freegate software before you arrive in China.

Taiwaned

Connectivity is not an issue within China however the "Great Firewall" can be frusterating. There is another thread in this forum about free vpn, if you do not have a company vpn or a paid service, one of those services will come in very handy.

Jamoldo

I have never brought my own ethernet chord but I usually travel for work and stay in really nice places... Regardless, some sites will be blocked. Facebook, Youtube, certain media articles etc. Speed, depending on where you are may be slow. I have found that in some places FT runs very very slowly and is a pain in the rear to post. Most things should be just fine though.

mosburger

Also the OneWorld airline alliance website remains blocked, officially due to similarities to a banned crossborder labour union web address.

But one could almost think that Air China is not that unhappy with the situation...

gonezen

I'm posting from a netbook in a Xi'an hotel at this moment and yes, FT is running slow. I can get everything I want except FB and YouTube. I've found most places have the cord as does this one, Gaosu Shenzhou, but they don't take up much room so why not be sure and pack one along with all those other cords and adapters?

susiesan

What exactly is a VPN service? is this a browser? Does it cost anything?

What kind of software is Freegate? What will it do for me?

This kind of work around is new for me. Everywhere I've traveled to I just got on my hotel network and got online using my own browser and the software on the netbook. China must be the only country in the world that makes internet access so difficult.

Chinatrvl

I'll cut it down to this: As a tourist, you will not need any VPN or special software. (Assuming you are not a facebook and youtube addict). Plug in the cord or connect to WiFi will do the job like in any other country.

We do have VPN at my company (rather for security reasons), but even without it, I hadn't had any problems in China for years now.

moondog

Virtual Private Network. You probably won't need one during your trip, but those of us that live here find them to be somewhat essential, especially now that Big Brother is messing with gmail.

View my security kiss thread if you are interested in a decent free service; the others tend to cost around $50 per year or $10 per month.

ucc

Last summer when I was using internet in a web cafe, the Green Dam(n) wouldn't let me visit Continental.com ...

jiejie

Note that VPN's have other uses than to get around the GFW to go outbound. For instance:
1) Many sites will block incoming traffic coming from Chinese ISP's due to hacking and spamming problems. You might be able to view but not login and actively use the site. If one of these sites happens to be your bank or some critical account, this could be very uncool. A VPN with a server in the country (or countries) that you need to pretend you are located in, is very useful in this situation. Certain sites (often entertainment or sports sites) are geoblocked to residents of that country or region, a corollary use that may apply to some.

2) Public wireless connections must always be considered extremely non-secure, so pick sites to access with care. Fire up your VPN, and this worry diminishes as you have an encrypted tunnel back to the home server, which is pretty signal-hackproof to all but the most sophisticated.

If you decide to get a VPN to use in China, especially a pay service, make sure it is an SSL type or something based on OpenVPN GUI. PPTP-type VPN's are rapidly becoming useless in China as they are easily blockable. If you use a Mac or Linux operating system, make sure before you buy that the VPN software/service will work for you--and perhaps check out relevant geek forums on the issue as to which VPN's are easiest to configure and use.

arsenalfun

just use proxy man to access blocked sites. you can find some at proxy zone ^

medic-again

you should know that google maps also is not the greatest in china and may put things in the wrong location or not provide the english translated street names. In Beijing, I've had them put the hotel north of a location vs it's true location south. Not horrible, but can get a bit frustrating.

This is more true when you search in english. If you can copy and paste the chinese address into the search box things tend to work better. I usually cross reference GoogleMaps with BaiduMaps when possible.

jiejie

I find Google maps MOSTLY WRONG in China, placing targets in all kinds of strange locations. I've tested it on known locations many times and my advice is...do not depend on them as a sole resource.

moondog

IME, apart from the slow loading issue, this is mostly a Beijing specific problem... due to the fact addresses are pretty much useless here (though, the post office is quite good at finding me).

To elaborate, my current address is something like 36 Middle 3rd Ring Road; it would not surprise me if 300,000 other people shared the exact same address. Furthermore, our streets tend to change names every half mile or so.

Ironically, Beijing is arguably the most logically laid out big city I have ever encountered (ring system, very few diagonal streets, etc).