July 2011 – You'll notice a lot of links that aren't working here on the site. It seems that in recent weeks, The Great Firewall has had some serious updates, and many of the VPNs featured/reviewed are blocked (at least the sites are). This may not be for the entire country, but at least here in Fujian, many have been blocked.
Securitales is a Web Based Service that is not blocked. A web based service is different from a VPN, but can also unblock sites in China. The advantage of a Web based service over a VPN is that you don't have to download anything onto your computer. It works on iPhone, iPad and other smart phones as well as laptop and desktop operating systems like Mac, Windows, and Linux.
The most important thing right now is that it's NOT BLOCKED.
Check out Securitales at www.securitales.com.
Internet Censorship in China
Bypassing internet censorship is pretty easy these days and it makes you wonder why the internet censorship was there in the first place. For expample, in China. Vpn's to bypass internet censorship are ALL OVER THE PLACE. All you have to do is a quick search in Google and you've got a million companies advertising. And it's not the secred coded advertisement that might trick the Chinese government into thinking that the companies are selling something other than ways to tunnel The Great Firwewall. Huge advertisements saying, "Bypass internet censorship in China." in plain sight for everyone to see.
So why hasn't there been a larger effort until now to block these sites offering vpn's in China?
Is it because the vpn sites are mostly in English? Is some ways yes, in some ways no. There are companies that advertise in Chinese, or at least have Chinese pages on their site. Vpn's to bypass internet censorship are not something strictly used by Westerners in China. However, it is obvious that most of the people using vpn's in China are Westerners. To be fair, there are 700,000 Facebook users in China (Chinese citizens) according to SocialBakers.com. Of 700,000 how many regularly access their Facebook accounts I'm not sure. Compare that to the population and….it's a really small number. Most people just aren't interested – read this article on Chinese Democracy.
Just how many Westerners are there living in China? I'm not sure but I guarantee thata 80 percent have vpn's.
Is it because Chinese people can't afford to bypass internet censorship? No. Five dollars a month is about thirty RMB and even a farmer can afford that if he really wants to. Most people wouldn't hesitate spending 30 RMB on a meal. One of those "western style" steak places will cost you 60 RMB a person.
Is it because the government doesn't have the technology to block vpn's that bypass internet censorship? Hardly. Please, do you really think that the government of a country can figure out how to build nuclear weapons, launch a man into space, and feed a country of 1.3 billion people but can't figure out how to block a vpn? I don't think so.
My personal opinion is that China's only tying to oppress the average citizen. Now, with media, the internet, and the ease of travel it's tough to keep everyone down, so you just maintain the eighty percent that's easier to keep under control, and convince them the other twenty percent are crazy.
If you're planning on going to China and will miss your Facebook or are here and want to see what your friends are tweeting get a vpn in China to bypass internet censorship. For just a few buck a month you can give the finger to internet censorship.