Nov 10
2008Unblocking the Great Firewall of China
Filed Under: Internet Security, Shanghai & China
1139 visits, 7 today
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Internet censorship prevents me (and 1.3 billion Chinese people) from accessing numerous websites. For years, I’ve had to use proxy servers like Anonymouse to gain access to various websites, both at work and at home.
Recently, I signed up for a personal VPN service through Witopia. Now I have access to everything! I’m able to access various blogs, websites, feedburner links, and many more. Best of all, I’m able to watch online streaming videos from various TV stations and Netflix!
Witopia connection is a little slower than my normal connection, but it works well and I’m a happy Internet user in China!
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Oh, I am so glad to learn about this!
you can also use a service called Hotspot Shield - free and somewhat annoying, occasionally, but seems to work well on Mac or PC.
yes..the ad banners on anchorfree hotspot shield are beyond annoying.
also… FYI…hotspot shield seems to share information with advertisers so they can target and price ads. not saying it’s necessarily spyware but maybe not best thing in China! 
Hotspot shield also has a monthly transfer limit so if you want to use Hulu or watch other u.s. tv you can use it up pretty fast and it will just die on you.
I’ve used it to watch Hulu without a problem. Not that worried about Spyware - what are they gonna do, get mad at me for watching The Office? All that being said - what’s the bandwidth speed on Witopia? Does it actually give good results for watching Hulu from Shanghai?
I’ve investigated in a bunch of “free” proxies, services, and methods to bypass the Great Firewall and yes, they all have annoying ads. Or they install a bunch of spyware and cookies. I finally gave in and purchased the Witopia personal VPN. $40 USD a year is not a big price to pay for access to everything, but then again, Internet should have been completely accessible to begin with…
Now I’m able to watch my favorite TV shows without having to buy pirated DVDs or watch broken segments from YouKu.
I was also able to install the VPN software on all my computers (home and work) although not simultaneous use though, which is fine. I’m only using one computer at a time anyway.
I use Speedtest.net to check my Internet connection speed. I have CNC 2Mbps connection at home, but the test results fluctuate between 1.5 to 3.3 Mbps. I don’t know why I’m getting a higher speed than what I paid for, but I’m not complaining.
After connecting to Witopia VPN, the speed is slower, but I’m still getting at least 1 Mbps connection. No problems watching TV shows from ABC, NBC, Fox, Netflix, etc…
Cool. My speed at home is good on download, horrible up.
Different topic - Anyone know of any tech-related groups in Shanghai that are good for general knowledge exchange?
Shanghaiexpat has a “technology issues” forum. That’s where I learned about Witopia.
This seems like a great idea. Ya know the censors are constantly at work shutting down new proxies. How long till this product gets shutdown now that you are drawing more attention to it? In cases like these the less known the better.