Gmail seems to be working albeit very slowly.

First time I've seen Gchat be completely nonfunctional, guess it's relying on limited Skype service.

Also, Gmaps seems to be completely defunct, though I'll happily use Baidumaps.

You can try downloading the G talk client as an alternate strategy, but I've found this approach almost as useless as using gchat within gmail.

I don't really give a rat's behind about gchat because 99% of my friends are on qq/skype/msn, but I have one contact in the US who is only accessible via gchat (sms too, but he responds faster to gchat), who I'm trying to get in touch with before the end of the weekend... pretty frustrating.

Had to contact my vpn provider, they said that China has really ramped things up recently.

They gave me a fix which had me adjusting my dns server.

It has been really a pain recently.

Tell me you don't chat with your friends in the US on QQ? :D

Grrrr. Only "basic html" is working for me again now.

Yep, it's been bad the last couple of days.

For 'video chat', we've found oovoo much better than skype to the US. Skype to Europe is fine.

tb