Originally Posted by
Chinatrvl
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Googling (why do you need google at all?) or researching sensitive topics when in the country - that is simply stupid.
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True that one foreign news source or another is always available. And I certainly am not a regular user of facebook or YouTube. I use a VPN here though as I simply no longer have the patience to deal with time-outs on Google searches just because something on the results page links to a site with the same (or similar) IP address as something the govt doesn't want the masses reading. I could just walk away from the computer and go and get a coffee each time this happens - but if I did that I think my fingers would be shaking (along with the rest of me) from all the caffeine....
Other search engines are of course available but Google search is by far the best (though I still mourn the good old days when Alta Vista was on top of things) for anything technical. And if you want to search for some images for making a presentation or a lecture using Google images, then if you manage to bring up even half a page of results before the page freezes you are doing well.
To balance that I'll say that Gmail has worked fine for me so far without a VPN, though somedays it loads slowly from either work or from home (but never both).
Originally Posted by
benzemalyonnais
... You can get porn too - I won't elaborate much further, other than to mention that a French friend I have in SH is quite a fan - to the point of having autographs of pornstars.
Interesting about your friend in Shanghai. I always wondered what real life situation would require the use of the phrase "you look different with your clothes on", but now at least I have one example!