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.

can someone confirm - this - when in China, can I VPN back to my employer's VPN here in the US - they are a fortune 500 company - thanks

Unless your company has set up some kind of special obfuscation to hide the connection from the GFW, then it will most likely not work. If it doesn't, there are other solutions you can use if you must connect to it. Such as tunneling openvpn over shadowsocks or tunelling it though another vpn on a router. Contact me through the Tips for China website if you need further info.

If you're not travelling to China for business purposes, I would check with your IT department to see if they even allow that. I worked for a major US company and we had a list of countries where we were not allowed to use company devices due to fears of government surveillance and China was on that list.

do you set openvpn to port 443 or a higher number

It won't make much difference. It will get blocked very quickly regardless of the port number if you set up your own OpenVPN server without obfuscation. Check your email, I sent you some info.

Enterprise-style VPNs (like Cisco AnyConnect) have, IME, been exempt from GFW tampering. If your company uses an open source VPN or standard protocol like OpenVPN or straight IPsec, it's unlikely to work.

I am also going to China What VPN is Working in China?

All of these ones are still working well for me.

If you want reliability and without much drama and hassle, go with Express VPN. I've been using them for years and never a problem. My friends that has all kinds of VPNs, have all been disconnected (some of them restored) from time to time. Never for Express VPN.

strangely enough, my vpn back to my company and even back to my home worked without issue everywhere in China but both are enterprise-type vpn like anyconnect. Whatsapp and google don't work

The VPN situation in China is constantly changing due to regulations and crackdowns. What that means is that most VPNs will not work properly if they do not put resources into overcoming those difficulties.
As I know, only a handful of VPN providers are dedicated to serving the China market and those are the VPNs you should use.

You can find reviews and speed tests of those VPNs here: Jump the Great Firewall

Not necessarily VPN related, but a friend just returned from China and was roaming with his Canadian cell phone with Canadian SIM and everything was still blocked. In the past, most people reported being able to bypass the Great Firewall when roaming, because traffic is routed back to your home country first.

I believe there was another recent post on FT where another FTer reported not being able to bypass the firewall when roaming with a Japanese SIM. Does anyone else have any recent experience?

Google worked fine a week and a half ago on a T-mobile sim.

China Mobile HK SIM and Thai TrueMove SIM both still bypass the firewall as of today.

I know people don't want to discuss publicly sometimes, but I use PIA which I know does not work currently, I'll be PVG for a few days and am looking to use a VPN. FWIW I am using project fi so I assume that will connect to a local telecom while I'm there.

You can try ExpressVPN, VyprVPN, or NordVPN. All of these work as I have extensively tested all of them.

You can see the results of my tests at: Jump the Great Firewall

Are the three VPNs in the post above still good options? Also, do they all work on mobile devices?

Yes they are good options, but bear in mind no consumer grade VPN is not foolproof in China. There will be random days where it just won't work and yes they work on mobile devices.

Thanks, I can deal with a few outages.

I've cycled thru a few VPNs but VPN Proxy MASTER works for my phones both on WiFi and cell, YMMV.

Yes they are still good, and right now I would personally recommend VyprVPN as I am using it now and it still works. There is news that the government recently blocked OpenVPN, but VyrpVPN's Chameleon protocol is working fine. The new VPN I am currently testing is having issues with getting a connection.

You can see reviews of other VPNs over here

ExpressVPN working fine for me, albeit I think it's the most expensive. During the CPC meetings in November, usage was very spotty. They were updating the APP on a daily basis. Right after the meetings ended, usage returned to normal. We'll see what happens in February when another crackdown on VPNs is rumored to kick in. Just this weekend on a trip to Hong Kong and got an HK SIM card from China Mobile that includes coverage in Southern China. With it I can access blocked sites since it's roaming to HK.