hey all,
going to china in a few weeks (changsha if that matters) only staying for a month. What are the current vpns that work? Don’t need many devices, but would like to have somewhat fast connection.
Price isn’t a massive problem since it’s a short stay, but obviously I don’t want to pay unnecessary amount of money if something cheap works.
thank you!
The most reliable method I’ve found is not a VPN but a Hong Kong sim/data plan. Cellular internet will tunnel through Hong Kong first, which bypasses the GFW. You don’t need to constantly toggle on/off VPNs and wonder whether you’ve been blocked/throttled. Mobimatter has HK plans for 30gb/$30/month and 45gb/$40/year.
AFAIR foreign SIMs that are in roaming mode are not getting firewalled.
was just in China last October.
Nord VPN works sometimes. I found that it would often take a while to find a connection. sometime it would find one right away, other times it would take 20+ minutes. I specifically got Nord because they said they work in China and was a little disappointed in them. Once it did connect, it ran just fine, no issue. it just took a while to connect
what did surprisingly work very well was Google Fi. my phone runs on a Google Fi Sim card. it’s unlimited talk and text. unlimited data but only first 50gb is high speed. it works right off the plane in something like 175 countries, including China. it has a built in VPN. as soon as I got off the plane in Yunnan, my phone just worked. it worked like I was still in the US. On my phone I could still check Gmail, Facebook, YouTube, and any other website blocked in China. I could also tether my computer and share that 50gb. while my computer was tethered to my phones data, it could also visit restricted sites. it is $70/month, which is higher than your average pre-paid plans but the simplicity that it just worked off the plane in China, as well as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Malaysia, was worth the cost.
International roaming is the most effective option for a short trip. Check the rates with your carrier before you go.
You could also spring for Astrill, but it’s like the Rolls Royce of VPNs. Should be rock solid practically everywhere - using it as we speak - but I’ve heard that it (like all commercial VPNs) can be a little touch and go in Beijing.
You can also roll your own, but that’s more of a solution for expatriates.
Mullvad worked pretty good for me but used HK sim card most of the time
Honestly the best way is any eSIM that you can install before getting into China. They bypass the firewall and are much more reliable than any VPN.
Astrill works but is not as good as it should be and expensive. Personally I use LetsVPN. Avoid NordVPN and ExpressVPN those don’t work at all these days.
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https://www.pcmag.com/picks/best-vpns-for-china
Always a game of whack a mole, the CCP will shut them down for a while and then bypassed again.
Downloading a few clients before you go and having a friend back home who signup for a new account on your behalf is best bet if yours gets blocked while there.
On the vpn subs, there’s a lot of sketchy copy and pasted recs for LetsVPN, but imo, spam marketing campaign or not, it works the best for it’s pretty low price.
Astril is the most reliable, it works most places most of the time. Every destination you can select from Astril works in China so particularly good if you need to pretend to be from your home country.
It is not always very fast though. Express and Nord are much faster but are more routinely blocked and only a select few locations work so it’s like cat and mouse.
The foolproof way to fast, uncensored internet is to have a foreign SIM card with roaming data (something like Flexiroam or Airalo works fine) then if VPN goes down or you can’t connect to a hotel Wifi network then it is a necessary backup.
Why does China block everything?
I tried to activate a Google Fi eSIM with iPhone the other day. Simply changing your IP to USA doesn’t work. You have to use some app to change your GPS location to USA to successfully activate a Google Fi eSIM. In addition I have to turn on Wi-Fi Calling to receive SMS or Phone calls, because it doesn’t have signal coverage in China now. I don’t know what’s the case with other carriers
Mullvad VPN is cheap and good, because it has 5 device limit while LetsVPN only has 2
There is a 2 device limit so if you have more than 2 device it’s not a good option. Mullvad is better in my opinion because it has 5 devices limit instead of 2
Because the Chinese Communist Party came to power through a violent revolution by organised parts of the Chinese population, and they are very determined that no-one else will do the same to them in future. So they control all means of communication that could allow people to organise against them.