I’m visiting Shenzhen and Guangzhou and would like to ask what is the best VPN to download before going?
I rely heavily on Whatsapp and Google for work so it’s not optional for me to go to China without VPN.
Also, I head buying an eSIM before going will allow me to bypass the GFW. Is this true?
Hello, I recommend you Astrill VPN. Little expensive at first look, but the best solution for China ethernet. Tested last week.
Enjoy!
Astrill’s probably the best. No VPN is 100% reliable though, so best be prepared for that. Sometimes they work well for days at time, sometimes there are periods when VPN access is very patchy.
They will still work just as well with a Chinese SIM card.
去Twitter搜索VPN，但记得按月购买
I’ve heard wannaflix is super, need to try it out though.
I used Ladder VPN, quite cheap and worked properly for me
Not available on Windows afair.
Astril is best, but virtually any VPN with a base in Hong Kong right across the border has a relatively fast speed as HK’s internet speed is pretty high.
I was told to get a roaming package from your country rather than VPN. I have used ExpressVPN, and it is VERY unreliable.
A foreign SIM on data roaming will give you the same access as the SIMs home country. It’s the only guaranteed way around the great firewall. But it is expensive 
There are some shadowrocket configured vpns which works in china smoothly . If want , pm me. I will recommend his wechat to you
The best ones are not openly advertised and they are not VPNs (but proxies).
Yeah everyone is recommending Astrill. I think I’ll go with that… Thank you!
If you use something like clash/showdowrocket Chinese Apps/sites are whitelisted thus not going through the VPN.
When VPN is on most local apps, like WeChat won’t work.
On Android, VPNs can whitelist or blacklist particular apps.
I hear iPhones lack this feature because Apple won’t offer the relevant OS-level support.
On desktop (incl laptops), it’s up to the VPN client to provide features like that - most do, some don’t, but on Linux at least it can be hacked in under the app anyway.
If you want to tether a desktop/laptop to an Android device, it won’t route through the VPN by default, but a little hackery allows it - specifically, adb shell "su - -c \"ip rule show | grep 'iif rndis0 lookup tun0' || ip rule add from all iif rndis0 lookup tun0 pref 17999; iptables -n -v -L natctrl_FORWARD | grep 'ACCEPT all -- rndis0 tun0' || iptables -I natctrl_FORWARD 4 -i rndis0 -o tun0 -j ACCEPT; iptables -n -v -L natctrl_FORWARD | grep 'ACCEPT all -- tun0 rndis0' || iptables -I natctrl_FORWARD 4 -i tun0 -o rndis0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT\"" or similar (may need to be adjusted if your phone sets its firewall up differently to mine)
Also, Wechat does work through VPN, it’s just slow and complains about random stuff.
If you’re a user looking for something to use in China, I’d be very suspicious of a company headquartered in Hong Kong like they are.
It’s usually pretty good but it’s been pretty slow recently
I would also recommend that you use the speedtest function in the computer version of the app so that you know which server works best for your situation.
How did this work for you? Headed there at the end of the week
I got an eSIM from Holafly… Astrill didn’t work. Holafly was perfect, I was able to use all my usual apps/websites.