For those in China who need a VPN

[Winston]

For those of you in China who need a VPN, theres good news. Opera browser now includes a free built in VPN that will unlock the firewall in China.

Everyone seems to be saying Opera is better and faster than Chrome and Firefox. Its smoother and less resource heavy too. Especially since Chrome is getting more and more bloated and resource heavy. And it has a power saver that saves battery too.

You can download it below. It has browsers for PC, Mac, laptop and browser apps for smart phones too.

http://www.opera.com

Everyone seems to like it so far and all the independent reviewers say its better than other browsers such as Chrome. See below.

https://www.youtube.com/results?q=opera%20browser

Also Google playstore now has many free VPN apps that you can install on your phone. I use VPN Master and Turbo VPN. They both work great and trouble free. They do contain ads but you only see the ads if you open the VPN. The VPN apps also let you choose different servers around the world to connect to. See here.

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=vpn

But make sure you do it before you go to China though because Google playstore is blocked in China. You can access Google in Hong Kong though, the internet there is not firewalled, even though its officially part of China.

[Adama]

What is the Chinese government trying to block and what for? Are they enemies of truth and knowledge?

[Winston]

What is the Chinese government trying to block and what for? Are they enemies of truth and knowledge?

I dont know. Probably a multitude of reasons. You should google the question and get a lot of answers. Maybe they dont want their people to be corrupted by western liberal values? Lol. And of course, they dont want their people reading negative things about China or its government.

[xiongmao]

Those of us who live here know that there are some subjects you just don't talk about. And why would you want to? Aside from this, you have a lot of freedom here. It's also way safer than the UK is and the locals share my views on immigration .

In fact other world governments would love to have the level of control they have here. My own government in the UK would love to be able to monitor everybody, and are making steps to do so.

Besides, the party has done a lot of good. Look around you. Chinese people are busy building Apple killer mobile phones (Huawei) and I believe the metro building expertise is now being exported to South America. Standards of living here in the East of the country are very high indeed.

In my own discipline (education) standards are rising very rapidly. In a few years China will most likely become a net importer of students from other countries, and less students will chose to study overseas.

In short, everything is good .

[Winston]

Correction:

It seems only the Opera PC browser has a VPN. Not the Opera mini browser for Android devices.

However this Opera VPN is not a total VPN either since it does not decrypt your data while browsing. It only redirects it using a proxy. So you dont get full anonymity while browsing. However it should still work in China to unblock sites through the China firewall though. Ill let you know when i try it in China if it works.

[MrMan]

If it doesn't have that extra protection, can the Chinese Cyberpolice see who is using Opera to get around their restrictions on the Internet?

[Winston]

If it doesn't have that extra protection, can the Chinese Cyberpolice see who is using Opera to get around their restrictions on the Internet?

Possibly. But they'd have to get the cooperation of the companies providing the proxies. Also, VPN's aren't illegal in China. Many people use them, including Chinese. Plus the Chinese government understands that foreign tourists need to visit Google and YouTube and Gmail so it is accepting of that.

[xiongmao]

If you need all the Internet here you can just use roaming on your phone.

The biggest loss for me is Google Maps. I'm forever getting lost now as this city is vast, mostly flat and there are very few places served by the metro.

[Winston]

If you need all the Internet here you can just use roaming on your phone.

The biggest loss for me is Google Maps. I'm forever getting lost now as this city is vast, mostly flat and there are very few places served by the metro.

Roaming is too expensive. Just use a VPN. You are supposed to use baidu maps in china. Thats what people there use.

[Winston]

Here are some VPN browser apps that include a browser and VPN combined which will let you unblock sites from China without having to manually turn on a separate VPN app first.

But there are many complaints about the first one though, so it may not be stable.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... owser.lite

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... pn.browser

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... xy.browser

https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... es.browser

[xiongmao]

Yes I am gradually finding out all the Chinese apps you can use, so you don't need a VPN.

They even have a Shazam clone, although Shazam does work here.

I have had moderate success with Baidu maps. I can search but I failed to find my student's bookstore on it. The maps load but they're slow.

In general the Chinese Apps drain battery life like anything.

[WorldTraveler]

What's a good VPN to use in my travels of the world. I have Pure now, but it seems not to work frequently. The times it doesn't work is when I need it the most, like on an Unsecured Network. Seems to work on a Secure Network, but when I try it on an unsecured network it won't connect. Any ideas? Also it works different on Windows 10 vs Windows 7. I haven't' added it to my Android phone yet.

[Winston]

What's a good VPN to use in my travels of the world. I have Pure now, but it seems not to work frequently. The times it doesn't work is when I need it the most, like on an Unsecured Network. Seems to work on a Secure Network, but when I try it on an unsecured network it won't connect. Any ideas? Also it works different on Windows 10 vs Windows 7. I haven't' added it to my Android phone yet.

Have you tried Opera yet? It's the only good browser I know of with a free built in VPN. For android there are many apps with free VPN. I use Turbo VPN. There's also one called China VPN. Search in the google play store on your phone.

You can download Opera browser here:
http://www.opera.com

However, please note only the desktop Opera browser has a built in VPN. The Opera mini browser for android does not.

[WorldTraveler]

What's a good VPN to use in my travels of the world. I have Pure now, but it seems not to work frequently. The times it doesn't work is when I need it the most, like on an Unsecured Network. Seems to work on a Secure Network, but when I try it on an unsecured network it won't connect. Any ideas? Also it works different on Windows 10 vs Windows 7. I haven't' added it to my Android phone yet.

Have you tried Opera yet? It's the only good browser I know of with a free built in VPN. For android there are many apps with free VPN. I use Turbo VPN. There's also one called China VPN. Search in the google play store on your phone.

You can download Opera browser here:
http://www.opera.com

However, please note only the desktop Opera browser has a built in VPN. The Opera mini browser for android does not.

Thanks Winston, I will download and try it and report back by thoughts.

[Winston]

Holy shit! China has announced that it will ban VPNs! What are we gonna do? Is this just a scare tactic or is this gonna be strictly enforced? See the announcement below.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... cktake-q-a

But what happens if i use a VPN app in China thats from an American developer that i got from google play store? How would they block it? Via my mobile data? Is that possible? Will they start checking everyone's phones at the border to see if they have a VPN app installed?