{"id":220774,"date":"2021-04-06T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-06T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-to-use-the-internet-from-china\/"},"modified":"2021-04-06T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T12:00:00","slug":"how-to-use-the-internet-from-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-to-use-the-internet-from-china\/","title":{"rendered":"#How to Use the Internet from China"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_89 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6aed2a1d400cc\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6aed2a1d400cc\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-to-use-the-internet-from-china\/#What_Is_the_Great_Firewall\" >What Is the Great Firewall?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-to-use-the-internet-from-china\/#How_to_Get_Past_the_Great_Firewall\" >How to Get Past the Great Firewall<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-to-use-the-internet-from-china\/#How_China_Blocks_VPNs\" >How China Blocks VPNs<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-to-use-the-internet-from-china\/#Download_before_You_Go\" >Download before You Go<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><strong>&#8220;#How to Use the Internet from China&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 1202px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-721205 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/china-keyboard.jpg?width=1200&amp;trim=1,1&amp;bg-color=000&amp;pad=1,1\" alt=\"The Chinese flag superimposed over a computer keyboard.\" width=\"1202\" height=\"557\" data-crediturl=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-illustration\/restricted-internet-access-china-chinese-flag-401739022\" data-credittext=\"karen roach\/Shutterstock.com\" onload=\"pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\" onerror=\"this.onerror=null;pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.loadIfVisibleAndMaybeBeacon(this);\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span class=\"imagecredit\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/image-illustration\/restricted-internet-access-china-chinese-flag-401739022\">karen roach\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If you\u2019re visiting China and want to use the internet, you\u2019re in for a nasty surprise: Many sites you take for granted, like Google and <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>, can\u2019t be accessed from the People\u2019s Republic. This block, often called the Great Firewall, can be annoying, although there are some ways to get around it.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_Is_the_Great_Firewall\"><\/span>What Is the Great Firewall?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The Great Firewall is a block on outgoing traffic from Chinese IP addresses. So, if you\u2019re on a connection from Beijing or Shanghai (and, since recently, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/jul\/08\/china-great-firewall-descends-hong-kong-internet-users\">Hong Kong<\/a>), you can\u2019t access sites like Facebook, Google, or a large number of Western media outlets (One example of the ever-changing list is <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_websites_blocked_in_mainland_China\">here.<\/a>\u00a0How-To Geek isn\u2019t on it, or at least, not yet.).<\/p>\n<p>We have a full guide on how the Great Firewall works, but, in short, it blocks traffic in several ways, making it very hard to get around. For example, if it detects a certain keyword being used on a site, it will make it so that any request to connect from a computer in China to that site returns an error. The best example is the phrase \u201cTiananmen Square Massacre,\u201d an event in 1989 when the Chinese army murdered protesters in a central Beijing plaza.<\/p>\n<p>The Great Firewall\u2014properly known as the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cs.stanford.edu\/people\/eroberts\/cs181\/projects\/2010-11\/FreedomOfInformationChina\/the-great-firewall-of-china-background\/index.html\">Golden Shield Project<\/a>\u2014was set up to regulate what the Chinese people get to see online. The criterion seems to be anything considered harmful to the Chinese public and, considering the People\u2019s Republic\u2019s ideas about <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-china-media-idUSKCN2AT182\">press freedom<\/a>, that includes many foreign media outlets. Also out are social media sites, which are off-limits mainly in the name of stemming \u201cmisinformation\u201d about what\u2019s going on in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Besides restricting the flow of information, the Great Firewall also targets things like online gambling, depictions of excessive violence, adult entertainment, and <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.refworld.org\/docid\/5971a87c13.html\">LGBT content<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_to_Get_Past_the_Great_Firewall\"><\/span>How to Get Past the Great Firewall<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If a government-censored internet doesn\u2019t sound that great to you, or if, like one Chinese national we spoke to, you need access to Google\u2019s search engine and email services for work, there are two reliable ways to get past the Great Firewall. You can either use Tor or a virtual private network (VPN). As Tor needs some expertise to set up, we\u2019ll focus on VPNs.<\/p>\n<p>VPNs are handy privacy tools that reroute your internet traffic to a server owned by the VPN. Instead of your connection going from your laptop or smartphone directly to the site that you want to visit, you connect to the server first, and then to the site in question. This makes it so that only the VPN knows where you\u2019re connecting from, with the website only seeing the VPN server\u2019s IP. At least, theoretically: Whether or not a VPN really keeps your activity private is a subject that is up for debate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED:<\/strong> <strong><em>What Is a VPN, and Why Would I Need One?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re in China and want to connect to Twitter, for example, the Great Firewall can keep you from doing so by blocking Twitter\u2019s IP address, poisoning its DNS server (a method that makes websites direct you to the wrong IP), or even blocking the packets of information that are sent from the site to you. It\u2019s an effective system and works like a charm on any Chinese IP address (or those from Hong Kong and Macau).<\/p>\n<p>However, you can circumvent these blocks by using a VPN server based outside of the People\u2019s Republic, provided that it hasn\u2019t been blocked by the censor. Thus, instead of using a Chinese IP, you can reroute your traffic to a nearby country without censorship (Taiwan and Japan are the main favorites), and enjoy their regular, free internet, just like at home.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_China_Blocks_VPNs\"><\/span>How China Blocks VPNs<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Sadly enough, though, there is one problem for anybody visiting China and using a VPN to get around the Great Firewall: not all VPNs work. All our contacts have had problems at some point or another while tunneling under the Great Firewall. In most cases, you\u2019ll just see the VPN connection fail or get a site error despite being connected through a VPN. That being said, none of our contacts has gotten into trouble for using a VPN in China, and the only punishment we could find for it online is in the form of a <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pcmag.com\/news\/china-starts-issuing-145-fines-for-using-a-vpn\">$145 fine,<\/a>\u00a0although <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tomsguide.com\/features\/are-vpns-legal-in-china#:~:text=VPNs%20are%20legal%20in%20China%E2%80%94sometimes&amp;text=Yet%20to%20use%20the%20technology,foreign%20visitors%20have%20received%20one.\">Tom\u2019s Guide<\/a> claims that no foreigner has ever received one. Even so, it\u2019s always best to avoid attention from the authorities in a totalitarian state.<\/p>\n<p>Exactly how China can detect VPNs isn\u2019t clear (The censor isn\u2019t exactly advertising its methods.), but most likely, it does so in the same way that it blocks other sites, through what\u2019s called \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/ieeexplore.ieee.org\/document\/7231449\">deep packet inspection<\/a>.\u201d Packets,\u00a0the bits and bytes that form a block of text or an image, contain the information sent over a connection. China has developed <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> that can intercept a packet and look inside to see whether any of the information is on the naughty list.<\/p>\n<p>What experts think has h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ened is that China can now also <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cs.tufts.edu\/comp\/116\/archive\/fall2016\/ctang.pdf\">inspect a packet<\/a> to see whether there\u2019s any sign of it having come from a VPN. When you connect to a server outside of China, the system checks for any tell-tale signs that you\u2019re connecting to a VPN. If so, it blocks the connection. The trick to getting around the VPN detection system is to use a VPN that masks its connections in such a way that they appear like any other.<\/p>\n<p>However, as many of our sources have confirmed, there\u2019s no sure-fire way to check which VPNs work and which don\u2019t. While many VPNs will advertise that they work in China, the only way to make sure is to go to China and find out. Or, better yet, you can ask anybody you know there which services work best for them.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, there are a few VPNs that came up a few times as being reliable when we talked to our contacts, namely,\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uxnzmft.com\/?offer=3monthsfree&amp;a_fid=howtogeek&amp;data1=content&amp;data2=720639\">ExpressVPN<\/a>, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vyprvpn.com\/\">VyprVPN<\/a>, and <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/windscribe.com\/\">Windscribe<\/a>, although in all cases, there were issues at times in the form of blocked servers or serious slowdowns. As far as we can tell, there\u2019s no VPN that works perfectly all the time in China.<\/p>\n<h2 role=\"heading\" aria-level=\"2\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Download_before_You_Go\"><\/span>Download before You Go<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Usually, the sites of these VPN services are blocked from within China, meaning that you can\u2019t download the program while there. That being the case, you should probably sign up for your service of choice (maybe even two) before heading to the People\u2019s Republic, just to be on the safe side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n setTimeout(function(){\n  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n  {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n  if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n  n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n  s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s) } (window, document,'script',\n  'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n   fbq('init', '335401813750447');\n   fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  },3000);\n<\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Technology category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/720639\/how-to-use-the-internet-from-china\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#How to Use the Internet from China&#8221; karen roach\/Shutterstock.com If you\u2019re visiting China and want to use the internet, you\u2019re in for a nasty surprise: Many sites you take for granted, like Google and Facebook, can\u2019t be accessed from the People\u2019s Republic. This block, often called the Great Firewall, can be annoying, although there are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.howtogeek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/china-keyboard.jpg?height=200p&trim=2,2,2,2","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}