5 ways to sneak through China’s Great Firewall

At this point, pretty much everyone knows China has a one of the most advanced internet censorship systems in the world. Referred to as the Great Firewall, the 11-year-old “Golden Shield Project” still has a few holes. All of them require rerouting internet traffic to a server that isn’t blocked outside of China. If you’re planning a visit or you live here and just want an alternative way to access Facebook when your preferred evasion method goes down, we’ve put together a list of five solutions for pole-vaulting over ‘the wall.’

Freegate

Pros

• Easy to use
• Free
• Only uses proxy when needed

Cons

• Sluggish
• Somewhat unstable
• No porn

This is probably the most common method of jumping the GFW used by native Chinese people, and is also used to view government-blocked websites in Syria, Iran, Vietnam, and other countries. Freegate uses a peer-to-peer-like proxy network called Dynaweb along with unique encryption. The proxy only kicks in when needed, so local Chinese sites aren’t slowed by being unnecessarily routed through an extra server. A downside for some to consider is that Freegate’s maker has an official “no porn” policy, so most such sites aren’t accessible. Other open proxy solutions like Freenet and I2P have cropped up, but Freegate seems to be the most reliable.

Paid VPNs

Pros

• Fast
• Reliable
• Secure
• Variety of countries to route traffic through
• Works on mobile

Cons

• Monthly/annual fees

The foreigner’s favorite. Most expats living in China who want to view blocked content subscribe to a paid VPN. Some of the most popular include Astrill, PandaPow, and StrongVPN. One of these pro choices will be the fastest, most secure, and most reliable method to access the real web. 256-bit encryption and a few dozen servers across a multitude of countries for your choosing are par for the course.

Many paid VPNs also come with 24/7 customer support. While servers occasionally get knocked out by the GFW, the various companies usually get them back up within hours. The only downside is the premium, usually between US$5 and US$10 per month. Many paid VPNs also have apps for desktop and/or mobile that let you connect through 3G or 4G to the VPN without the complicated settings configuration, but these are hit-and-miss.

(See: 4 of 5 countries most hooked on VPNs are in Asia )

VPNGate

SSH tunneling

Tor (with bridges)