Three ways to access facebook in China
24 November 2009
5 Comments
As I travelled around China, a common problem that I heard in hostels was that people couldn’t access a number of websites including facebook, youtube, blogspot and at times hotmail and gmail. Not the end of the world you may say, but for some it was proving to be quite an inconvenience. People that I met were using a variety of solutions to get around the Great Firewall of China, some better than others. So here are three ways to access facebook in China:
- VPN – I previously posted an article about how to use a VPN to bypass the Great Firewall of China. A solution such as Happy VPN will let you access any site when you are stuck behind the Great Firewall of China.
- Proxy – Several hostels that I stayed at suggested using a proxy site called secure tunnel as a work around. Secure tunnel appeared to do the job, its a free service, but I would not recommend accessing personal accounts using it. Its probably only a matter of time before secure tunnel is blocked, but there are many others out there doing exactly the same job.
- Tor – Another solution that I found people using was Tor, a network that routes your connection through other computers, but again this isn’t secure so I would be very wary about providing any login details through it.
If you are planning on travelling with your own laptop in China, I would definitely recommend investing in a VPN solution and getting it up and running before you arrive there. It is by far the most secure and reliable way to access blocked websites.
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There used to be a pretty neat site that would tell you if a given site was blocked in China (foxnomad was at the time). It's down now but these regional blocks are pretty easy to get around. You're right though, just need to be careful as to what information you actually send when connected to the VPN/proxy.
i have been living in beijing for 3 years now me and my friends have found a lot of sites that you can use to access FB youtube
if you have opera as an internet browser (i recommend, it it is very good) there is a widget that you can download called Proxy list that provides you with working internet based proxy sites
they are very good but if you want to post stuff u have to turn off the setting at the top. But normally it is a little slow, if you want be fast just check out VPN service, such as fbvpn $5 /month strongvpn $12 /month freedur $19 /month. Good luck to you!
You mentioned that secure tunnels give you access to facebook but become blocked soon after. What about proxy services such as Securitales. I learned about it from this article about <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/access-facebook-china">how to access facebook in china</a>. It actually works, but I don't know if it's using secure tunnel.
I`m living in China for 2 years now. Everyone here uses a VPN to get on FB, Youtube etc.
. Right now I`m using <a href="http://www.sunvpn.com/">SunVPN</a>, it seems to be the most reliable <a href="http://www.sunvpn.com/vpn-for-china.aspx">VPN for China</a> I used so far.
I used around 10 different VPN providers so far
BTW, almost all proxies are blocked here, so to get VPN is really the only real choice you have.