VPNs in China
 

Have read multiple stories that China is beginning to crack down on VPNs. Wondering whether this crackdown has affected any posters here. I try to visit Wuhan with my children every summer, and their visit would be made much more difficult with VPNs and a chance to watch American programs.

They've been playing cat and mouse with VPNs for as long as I can remember. The better ones tend to be pretty reliable.

Can you PM me the "reliable" ones? I need to guarantee my VPN internet when I'm in China. I've used a few paid services in the past that got shut down...

Use one that offers non-standard ports. I've had good success with those.
Also tunneling through a http proxy worked well but not all VPN clients allow that.

Using a private/company VPN that has endpoints not listed on the open internet seems to work much better than using a large commercial service.

There is currently a new push to shut them down: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/polic...great-firewall
"... I need to guarantee my VPN internet when I'm in China..." - you really can't guarantee this.

If you only care about getting access to Facebook and Gmail and aren't particularly worried about avoiding Chinese government surveillance, use one of the government-licensed providers like FFVPN (https://www.fanjsq.net/).

I like the idea as I'm simply after access to the stuff I routinely use.

Trying to set that up, though! I see no English option on the website and my wife is very non-technical.

From article comments:

"Yup, fake news is right!
Here is the original: http://www.miit.gov.cn/n1146290/n438...6/content.html

It says fixed line VPN service (like what China Telecom sells) can only be sold by approved parties. Probably just to help guarantee their monopoly.

Nothing about consumer VPN services is mentioned in the regulations. Nothing about such VPN companies, and nothing about people in China who use their services. This is a regulation about fixed line telco services, which the VPN providers used by your average expat in China do NOT sell!
This story is false, misleading and irresponsible to your readers. It's a shame other news outlets are picking up a fake news story like this!"

This is completely irresponsible and inaccurate reporting by the mainstream media. Check my blog post on this subject for more information.

https://www.tipsforchina.com/blogs/p...l-not-illegal/

For current information on VPN performance in China, check this page.

https://www.tipsforchina.com/vpn-in-...2017-blog.html

Great website! Can't believe today's the first I've seen it.

You are now *the* China VPN expert in my mind. (Moondog, you are still the all-around expert)

One counter-intuitive question for you -- are there China VPN servers? Meaning I like to use qq music etc. but they don't work outside of China. Are there ways to access these when outside of China?

So that VPNs are illegal in China is fake news? My story came from the blog of a law firm based in China.
In any case, I am glad that nobody ever talks about the VPN that I use.

Yes, there are many Chinese VPNs offering servers in China for the purpose of accessing QQ music or streaming services that are geo-restricted to mainland China. It is actually these VPN services with servers in China that the law in China applies to. I suspect most of them are unlicensed and therefore illegal. Most of the VPNs that I recommend don't have any servers in China. I have noticed China locations on a few that I have tried in the past. As I recall, it was 12VPN and TorGuard with server locations in mainland China. However, I suspect that they won't have these locations for much longer now that there is all this attention.

Great website, thank you.

Thanks Jiajun and other posters. In addition to being concerned about the availability of vpns, I was afraid that if I used one while visiting China I could get my Chinese relatives in trouble. Looks like that is not an issue. Thanks again.