great firewall Posts

Aug032010

Posted By
Ryan

Review: Invisible Browsing VPN (ibVPN)

A little down recently about my regular VPN’s lackluster speed, I started testing out a new service called ibVPN (Invisible Browsing VPN) and am decently happy with the results/ease of use.

The service is strictly PPTP and not SSL, which I suppose is both a pro and a con. From my experience PPTP is faster and easier to setup as services go, but is easier to get blocked.

And blocked I think is exactly what happened with the initial setup I was using with the service. ibVPN allows you to use various different gateways (3 US, 2 UK, 1 DE and 1 NL). I slapped the first US gateway into my settings and tried to connect — no go. Not a great start for my review. Not easily dissuaded, especially when the reward is funny cat videos, I gave the second US gateway a try — worked great.

Jun032010

11Comments

Posted By
Lost Laowai

Vimeo unblocked at the moment — eat it up while you can

Vimeo Logo Yesterday Elaine at the Shanghaiist reported a number of sites were miraculously unblocked — Vimeo, Hootsuite, VOA News. Checking now and it appears Hootsuite has re-fallen to the mighty River Crab, but Vimeo is still powering along … for now.

Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are all still unaccessible.

Jan242010

7Comments

Posted By
Jarrod

Google and the Illegal Flower Tribute

At this point, everyone knows about Google’s decision to channel Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” and more or less say “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” when it comes to complying with China’s internet censorship laws. In its January 12 blog post, Google stated that the company does in fact recognize [...]

Oct152009

37Comments

Posted By
Steven

The Great Firewall: longer, higher, meaner

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and more: all blocked in China

The already unfortunate situation of internet censorship in China – imposed by the so-called Great Firewall – has been slowly getting worse this year, making a mockery of claims that the Olympics would open up China in terms of allowing a greater spread of communication and discussion. This year the Great Firewall has metamorphosed from a paranoid bug into a malignant disease, a raging cancer, blighting creativity, free speech and the flow of ideas.

Just a few months ago I posted here on Lost Laowai about China’s massive web-filtering system, and how it was becoming distinctly anti-social in that it was targeting social-networking and web 2.0 sites, such as Facebook and YouTube, which are characterised by allowing a fast flow of information and ideas.

Bad news: that’s getting worse, and this time there’s no identifiable reason.

Jul072009

43Comments

Posted By
Ryan

Block Block Block, Blockity Block

I went to the supermarket today, but was blocked at the entrance by some dude checking his receipt and yelling at someone on his phone. Shrugged it off. Grabbed my gear and headed for the bus stop, but was blocked by some old lady super excited to bear witness to China’s mass-transit system in motion. [...]

Jul312008

49Comments

Posted By
Rick

Using a VPN to beat Chinese Internet Censorship

Those who are in the know in China all say that a Virtual Private Network is the way to go if you want to get around the so-called Great Firewall in China. Most VPNs cost money, but I recently found this free one that works well, and I thought I’d share it with you guys. As you can see from the video, it’s a very quick and easy install and requires no expertise at all (my speciality!) to configure.

Spread the word among your friends in China. Screw proxies. This is friggin’ wonderful.

Watch the Video of the VPN install:

Mar292008

2Comments

Posted By
Ryan

Access Flickr (in China) Upgrade

If you’ve been using the Firefox addon Access Flickr, which allows you view Flickr photos while being behind the Great Firewall, you may have noticed some photos display just fine and some wont at all. Since posting last june about the fantastic solution for us shutterbugs in China, Flickr has added a new “farm” for [...]

Feb242008

12Comments

Posted By
Ryan

Great Firewall of China: Explained

Finally. Finally a journalist has sat down and hashed out a detailed, sourced explanation of how China’s Internet censorship works. May I just say, thank you Mr. Fallows. James Fallows is The Atlantic’s “man in China”, and his article “The Connection Has Been Reset” is the first article I’ve seen that has given an extensive [...]