VPN not working

Hi,

I am also in Shanghai and this normally happens when there is a big event (especially a government event) happening. This is their national day event. So they block most of the VPN servers. It will get back to normal within the next two days. I use Express vpn and my VPN got back to normal today. You can download Wang VPN, Super VPN which are free versions in the play store as temporary solutions. Lesser-known VPNs are less likely to get blocked.

ok thanks so much for that  i was super worried that i wont be able to access my social media to stay in touch with family and also to keep me sane .  i have express but its still not working so will wait in the next few days and hopefully it works

Welcome to China, this is how it goes, in the Middle Kingdom, as for your many vpn downloads, give it a rest for the coming 7 days or so... it's a well deserved rest, and happy holidays!

have lived in China for many years... am also from Australia...Use nothing but Express VPN... & if you keep your app updated you will always have access ....ok... lost all servers last Friday for about 35 min....but since then... no problems...if you pay the money you do get the very best....
James

My close friend was planning a trip to China, and she said that there are restrictions or certain social media websites. It caught my attention, so I looked into the topic a bit more, and I found this article, which lists all the VPN providers that can bypass the Firewall, hope it helps you out: https://medium.com/@evanlovel/top-vpns- … 009e83949d

thanks guys for all the advice i appreciate it. I have also astrill VPN but nothing is working ads of yet  i guess will have to wait .

Yeah unfortunately virtually all VPNs get blocked around major public holidays these days. The blocking can really vary across province / Internet service provider, too.

I actually made a website where people can share their reports of VPN blocking (or VPN working) based on their province / ISP:

***

We've seen quite a few submissions from expats / residents  from all over China already. More regular submissions are always welcome!

When the government gives their blessing, then you may have the privilege of accessing the other 70% of the internet that the CCP is obsessed with controlling.  I hope you are making good money here because something needs to compensate for the deterioration in quality of life!

Try to use a latest version of VPN Master application. You will get the updated version ***. It will solve your problem I hope.

try wannaflix.com

Stupid question but did you pay for Astrill, Nord or surfshark.. Because all those are subscriptions that cost money.

Astrill works 365 days of the year it's also better then Express vpn in terms of speed and uptime.

Just make sure it's always updated and switch between the 3 modes if one is not working.

I agree with what you said, Astrill has been very stable indeed and is available 365 days a year, but it is more expensive than ExpressVPN. Generally, personal choice may not be cost-effective, and it is still possible for companies to use it with multiple users. For individuals, you can try a free VPN if you don't use it often. Some VPNs still have some advantages.

Long duration expats, such as myself, who conduct business outside of China has often become frustrated by the "great firewall of China". As over the last five years of so, it has been getting harder and harder to access western Websites, and use Western applications. For the longest time, I had my IT staff work the issue.

Initially the answer was a VPN, and then when it became problematic, a second one. And then a third one, and we would juggle them to see which ones work. In 2019 the algorithms became especially intelligent with the implementation of AI and very strict monitoring of regional ISPs.

Back then, just about all VPN's only had a 10% chance of working if at ever.

The solution was simple, but uncomfortable for us. We stopped using Western apps, and frequenting Western websites.

After a while you get used to it.

I have been told that there are some VPN's that still work. But I have NEVER seen any in the last 16 months that can operate within China, no matter what they advertise. Also note that your browsing habits are are tracked by the AI systems, and the apparent "freedom" of use of a VPN might be allowed for other purposes. This can include the generation of a profile or social scoring for foreigners or association with monitoring of movement.

For instance, one of the reasons why China was able to stop the "pro democracy" movement in Hong Kong was because of the internet behavior of it's users.

Nothing to be appalled by. China is a big nation and there are "bad actors" from foreign lands that are desirous of evil intent. It is the role of the Chinese government to protect it's citizenry from these elements.

So you chuck "Facebook", abandon "Google". Stop sending out "tweets", and give up on "Instagram" and suddenly your life is far easier and simpler and better.

If you do decide to keep on using a VPN, keep in mind one important point...

China does NOT have internet access. It has a Chinese-developed intranet. China controls every aspect of it. And if you are using a VPN to tunnel out, do not assume that it is because you have bypassed the system. Rather you are being allowed to use a VPN so that your behaviors can be monitored.

From a technical point of view: If a connection to a VPN server is established there is no chance of spying the traffic since it is encrypted. Or not? 

From a practical point of view: Indeed are most VPN services working unreliable or not at all.  Keep in mind that there main goal might not be to bypass China's firewall. However if you are using an Android System I can recommend IKEv2 with StrongSwan and NordVPN servers. I get very stable connections. However for windows I did not find anything reliable till now.

But actually I also think it is the best solution to just get rid of western applications. If you take the challenge, you will see that there are alternatives for everything. Works even better if you learn Chinese. It is also a good opportunity to get an impression on the world from the "other" side.

The contents of the traffic cannot be easily determined (but who knows how powerful their computers are), but they can tell a lot just from the patterns. Simply the fact that so much traffic is going to a single server is a tell-tale sign, and then it can probably tell the difference between a video stream and someone typing/editing, etc etc...it's not too difficult to imagine they might have a database of 'patterns' that are typical for various web sites/services.

Indeed, VPN has historically been quite unreliable - though I can't remember the last time my VPN service didn't work, for some definition of 'work'.
People use VPNs for various purposes, and I think people in China just want the sites/services they're used to to simply 'work again'. They're not so interested in 'pretending to be somewhere else' in order to use netflix or whatever. I'd also suggest that not too many people care about the governments knowning what they're doing...not directly anyway...it's simply they want things to work.

I'd quibble with the claim that "China does NOT have internet access. It has a Chinese-developed intranet". That's pretty much the same in any country, to one degree or another. It is kind of like an 'intranet', but it isn't literally. The 'Great Firewall' isn't a real firewall like a company would have with gateways to other countries - it's more like a deliberately broken internet connection. What works and what doesn't work totally depends on your ISP and even on the specific connection for the ISP. The way things "don't work" also varies. There are, if you know, connects that aren't 'broken' at all and require no VPN use (at least not on your part), but they kind of prove the statement "Rather you are being allowed to use a VPN so that your behaviors (sic) can be monitored" - since they kind of depend on you being a foreigner (ie not possible for a local to get), and are presumably monitored.

Personally, I think there are two different motivations behind these measures.
One is to monitor in an attempt to detect terrorism etc - ala NSA/Snowden, but not done secretly. What Snowden revealed was a revelation to many; but the Chinese don't even really try to hide it. All countries do this to one degree or another, though unlike the USA (and UK), it is mostly about their own citizens/country.
The other is to enable law enforcement on foreign companies/etc. With so many services based on the internet, it would be a trivial thing to do to let Chinese people use services hosted in another country, thereby bypassing the jurisdiction of China. The GFW prevents that, and gives them a tool to enforce their laws.

Anyway, that is sort of beside the point and I guess some would debate with my views there.
What is interesting is what does work and what doesn't. I mean, I have one vpn service (ExpressVPN) and over the years I've found it can be hit-or-miss. Most often, it stops working when there's a political event in town (Beijing), and otherwise works ok - but it is only a certain set of servers that work, so it's mostly useless if you need to pretend to be in another country (unless, largely by coincidence, it is one of those that works). However, I have the same service on several OSes, and sometimes one works while another doesn't....so, how does that happen? Perhaps the VPN clients are different, or perhaps the GFW 'rules' on the internet connection can detect the difference and implement different measures (for what reason, though?).
It's tempting to think that it all might be quite sophisticated, but I find myself doubtful.

Still, ExpressVPN has been pretty good over the past few months...famous last words...touch wood...etc etc. If that's not the same for others, then perhaps that's a sign of something more sophisticated - eg my "activity" has meant that they consider me no threat, and so not worth the bother of blocking VPN or anything like that. Perhaps it's just an accident. Who knows.

I agree that ditching western services is likely the best way to 'solve' the problem. However, it is not trivial. Learning Chinese....well, yeah, easier said than done, imo. I've been in China for nearly 18 years, and I know next to nothing, beyond some really basic stuff I need to know to get things I want. I can't respond to any further interaction, and I certainly can't read anything significant which I would need to do in order to use any Chinese internet services. My wife speaks almost perfect English, so it's been simply too easy to continue to use English. That's not to excuse plain old laziness too. Other situations probably force 'one' into learning more and make laziness more difficult to accept. I imagine, also, being an extrovert means you're more likely to want to learn Chinese...as an introvert, it is quite nice not to have to interact with many people...almost ideal, actually

At the end of 2019, I bought a Chinese Huawei phone, thinking I could ditch all the Google-centric  services, and it wold force me to find alternatives. However, this has proved really quite painful - much more so than I thought. I didn't realise I was so locked into the Google ecosystem. I guess that's all the more reason to try to break out of it. It does make me wonder, though, if Apple users have an easier time of it - I imagine most things still work to one degree or another; like notifications, for example. I mean, I have WhatsApp and Skype and so one, and they all work, but I don't get notifications of new messages, etc. - well, not always. I'd imagine those things still work on Apple. Google's political arrogance (ignorance?) is only really causing pain to foreigners in China - Chinese people seem not to even notice, and so care correspondingly little. Of course, the US government also plays a big hand in this pain (and by proxy, the UK et al). Anyway, less politics, I suppose.

A few years ago I thought Astrill was the best VPN. Our company has always used it, but this year, I found that it is not so easy to use. After switching certain nodes, many web pages cannot be opened. I don't Knowing what happened, I think we should choose a better VPN.

so far I used the Astrill router in my home and no problem at all in Beijing.  Even for my iPhone, so far I didn't have any problem att all.

I just use Netgear Router flashed to be Merlin router and install the Astrill router plug-in into the router.

Sorry if this is a old thread and I'm reliving it. I recently moved to China and need a VPN to keep in contact with my friends in Canada using FB messenger and Insta, as well as taking online classes for Uni.
In Canada I bought Surfshark to access Netflix from around the world. Once I entered China, the VPN stopped working for a day and then came back on, although very spotty and slow.
I was recommended a Chinese VPN called pangyu(胖鱼) and it works a lot better and is stable, I was only off 2 days for the last 6mnths. This one is paid and only through wechat or Alipay. It's kind of a hidden website though so it's hard to find.

VPNs and the Chinese internet is so frustrating for me, I really hate being limited to Baidu and wechat. I know that not using foreign websites will make my life easier but it's easier said than done. Hope you all find a better solution, cheers.

try expres VPN... Ive used it for 12 years in China..it works

If you still have a Canadian address, try this:

https://www.cmlink.com/ca/

Try ProtonVPN. . . Free plus no data mining.

@mimi84843 Hi im in China as well. I think the VPN server that you choose might be blocked. You can try more VPN services to see if they work. I recommend you to use VPN Proxy Master. That's what my local friends suggest I use here. It ensures fast and stable connectivity and there're more than 50 servers in different countries. You can get access to social media or streaming sites with VPN Proxy Master. Strongly recommended.

Although Nordvpn has a high reputation, it cannot be used in mainland China. It is recommended that you change to a [link moderated], such as ExpressVPN, in terms of speed and security, but it is more expensive.