Hi, guys. I dropped strongvpn a few months back because it started to suck (only ime), and moved on to expressvpn earlier today.

Like most vpns, those guys have a referral scheme that allows us to get free months by passing on the word.

While I could easily spam 25 people with invites in order to avail of a year of service for the $13 I gave them, I don't see a need for a full year because there's a pretty good chance that the Big Brother will kill them within the next 6 months.

That having been said, I'm starting this thread since I've been pleased with what I've seen thus far (last 12 hours)... Google Plus still exists!

Basically, I signed up under one of my bosses, and I asked lady1964 to use me (based on her suggestion).

In short, for those of you that aspire to browse the real internet in China, I encourage you to join in the action. In the event expressvpn meets its maker, we can simply switch horses, but the game will go on!

Thanks for the tip. I've resisted getting a VPN because I have a corporate one anyway which keeps me sufficiently connect. Plus I assume whatever I sign up for will just get nuked. However the restrictions of late have just gotten completely bonkers that I'm starting to cave.

Will look into expressvpn a little more and see if I'll finally take the leap!

I've never really considered a VPN but as of now I cannot even access espn to get the lowdown on the NFL games. This is the straw the breaks the camels back! How do you go about signing up for expressvpn?

Well, you just go to their website (.net in the event .com is down). If you have time, try to allow someone to refer you (I wonder if there is a way to do this without posting email addresses here, something I'm not too keen on doing) because that gets them a free month. The way I see it, each one of us pays for a month and gets a free month. I am not inclined to sign up for one of the longer term plans because it's anyone's guess what the future holds for specific vpns in China (Big Brother has far more resources at his disposal than any one vpn).

Hi,
Moondog has kindly sent us the invite/referral but as yet we haven't taken it up as hubby initially had a problem connecting (he's in Beijing now) so he's managing with what he has. He's home on Thursday then we are going to Beijing in 11 days time so fully intend to try it then, happy to report back on our findings if folk are happy to wait.
Thanks Moondog for the referral ^

I'm bumping this thread in order to proclaim that I really like these guys. While things were rough at first, their customer service people are great; they are fast to reply to my emails, and have helped me to optimize their product.

I ran a speed test yesterday, and, believe it or not, my on-VPN result was 5 times faster than off-VPN.

Am I correct to assume that the reason for VPN isn't to keep people from seeing what you're sending or receiving, but rather to open a clear path to the outside world (to avoid China's internet blocks)? That by using a VPN China can't tell what part of the 'net you're accessing because it's essentially encoded at the source (the company offering the VPN services)?

Having just returned from China, this issue is quite interesting to me. I was getting my 'net services via simcard (China-Unicom 3G most of the time) and found the blocking to be highest in Beijing, a bit less in Xi'an, and almost non-existant in Shanghai. I was quite surprised that it would vary by region. The most-obvious issues were with Google and Facebook.

If this is something not comfortably discussed here, feel free to delete this post. Thanks-

That's impressive, and odd! I usually get faster upload speeds (? govnt not keen on bloggers??) but much slower download speeds when on vpn.

Where the clocked speeds faster than what your connection was meant to be?

tb

Basically yes, although as moondog and trublu point out it can also help with upload and/or download speed. My VPN provider was hit badly with the increased security at the start of this year but still works for a few servers. I can still sometimes get the 4-5x download speed increase, but this varies from session to session.

Even more surprising than the regional variation is the local variation. I have never had a problem with basic Gmail, though others in Beijing have. Sometimes I can access sites from my home, and not from my office. Right now I can only access Flyertalk at home with a VPN, but it was fine from my office this afternoon.

moondog: does that SecurityKiss VPN work for you still? I used it for a while when mine was blocked, but now it no longer works for me.

No, but they were at least close to China Telecom's promise (950 v. 1000). I suspect that part of the problem is that speedtest.net's Changchun server is rather crappy.

I gave up on SecurityKiss in part because it stopped working well, and in part because my Windows 7 computer doesn't get along with it (asks me to log in as an administrator, even when I already am). I don't mind paying these expressvpn people because they have been exceedingly helpful (very fast responses to emails).

Just to add we arrive in Beijing on Monday so we will load expressvpn conga onto our home desktop ready for us to try when we arrive in Beijing. Give me a few days after arrival to sort myself out & I'll report back. I am encouraged though by the positive reports already on here.
We already loaded gotomypc (UK) while my hubby was in Beijing and that worked fine for him so it will be good to compare. We suspect that Expressconga will be better.
Regards

UPDATE:

We loaded express vpn onto my netbook which took under 5 minutes and after a few initial problems getting a server list up, we have now resolved that after emailing and getting good advice.
I'm impressed at the speed and service so far, we connect via the UK so we can watch UK tv programmes and get the websites we want.
I suspect we will subscribe to the service fully if all continues as well as it's started.
regards

Good to hear. I use an academic vpn, but it does mean that I have to kick my wife off from using it (and her checking fb!) when I'm at work.

We might look into this. You can PM me a referral link you like.

tb

Not sure I can tb, Moondog sent me the referral, I wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes, hope you understand.