The Great Firewall

Wow. I'm able to post today without a VPN. So I will take advantage of this spat Google is having with the Chinese government and give everyone some advice on how to beat the Great Firewall of China. There are a couple of options. You can use a proxy website or you can use a VPN or TOR. There are benefits and drawbacks to all of them.

Proxy websites:

Example: http://www.vtunnel.com


These are web pages that you navigate to in your browser. The actual definition of proxy server is that it is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests between the client and other servers. In other words, your computer sends a request to a server that is in another location and that server in turn makes a request of another server for the same information. The proxy server then connects the client with the relevant service. This is great for access to some of the 'banned' web sites in China (such as anything to do with Tienanmen) but the amount of information that can be sent this way is very limited. This means that videos are difficult to get. Also, it is not always anonymous so your actions can be tracked. Another downside to the web-based proxy is that the size of files you can download is often restricted to something like 4 MB. A third issue with this method of getting around the GFW is that Java or Java-scrips often don't work very well so forget about Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter (not to mention any gaming sites). For more information about proxys and proxy servers visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server

VPN

This is an acronym for Virtual Private Network. Information that travels via a VPN is not visible to the underlying network. This is accomplished with very strong encryption. VPNs are often billed as "network tunnels" to navigate through nasty firewalls. However, some VPNs work in China and others do not so do your research. There are free VPNs out there such as Hot Spot Shield, which can be downloaded at http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,71209-page,1/description.html . Hot Spot Shield works OK, but the amount of information you can request per month is very limited and if you go over the limit, you need to wait 4 weeks. There is also a lot of unnecessary crap that is included with Hot Spot Shield, such as adverts and a nasty habit of automatically forwarding your webpage to the Hot Spot homepage if the one you are downloading takes too long. This can be a pain in a$$ so I actually recommend downloading a VPN that you have to pay for. There are plenty to choose from. I like StrongVPN. It is a little slow when accessing local Chinese sites, but it will access your gaming sites and Facebook, etc. pretty quickly. ti can be downloaded at http://www.strongvpn.com/ . A note about buying a VPN, you want to choose an "Open" VPN not a PPTP for China. The standard version at StrongVPN will runabout $15.00 (US)/ month.

The drawbacks to VPNs are that to download them, you typically have to disable your anti-virus software. So be careful and do your research. There are a lot of scams out there. Also, the cost thing is another issue. However, this is the most reliable way to access banned sites in China. You can access Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, World of Warcraft, etc. on most of the purchasable VPNs. If you have specific questions about a particular VPN's services then you should ask the company. For example if you are a WoW fanatic and need your daily fix, you should ask about whether or not the VPN supports WoW.

TOR

TOR stands for The Onion Router. It is a software installation and open network that was originally invented by the US Naval Research Laboratory to hide their online activities while in foreign countries (like ye olde USSR). It as since gone public and is now run and supported by TOR Project. TOR is essentially a proxy server on steroids. It does much the same thing as web-based proxy does, but in much larger portions. It uses many layers of cryptography to send information between routers (hence the "onion" moniker). The benefits to TOR are that it is available free and can be used anywhere in the world to send as much or as little information as you need. However, there are several downsides. TOR does not and can not encrypt the traffic at the end-point or exit node.[1] Therefore, anyone with access to an exit node can get all of your information. This does not necessarily mean that they can get things like your e-mail address or personal information; they will only be able to see that if that is the information your are using TOR to send. That said, the more people who use TOR, the safer it becomes because more servers will be located within its massive hulk.[2]

There are some other drawbacks to this technology. Due to the nature of the beast, TOR is rather slow compared to smaller proxy severs. Yes you can send larger amounts of data through TOR than through either a VPN or regular proxy, but you have to wait for a really, really, really long time. This is because when you sent information through TOR, that information is like a little Hansel and Gretel dropping bread crumbs. TOR has to clean up all those crumbs before it can send the information on to the next layer of routers. This process is repeated over and over until your information reaches its destination. Likewise for information returning to your computer. Also, in order to download TOR, you first need a VPN as the files are far too big to download over a standard proxy server. This kind of defeats the purpose don't you think?

It is for that reason that I recommend using a VPN. Whether you use a free one or not is up to you, just make sure you do your homework and avoid the scams. Hope this helps.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(anonymity_network)
[2] http://www.torproject.org/